THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

GIFT  OF 

Louisiana  Scott  Shuman 


LATER  SPEECHES 


POLITICAL   QUESTIONS 


SELECT  CONTROVERSIAt>APERS 


GEORGE  W.  JULIAN 


EDITED  BY  HIS  DAUGHTER 

GRACE  JULIAN  CLARKE 


INDIANAPOLIS 

CARLON  &  HOLLENBECK 


COPYRIGHT    BY 

CAELON  &  HOLLENBECK. 

1889. 


LOAN  STACK 
GIFT 


PREFACE. 


THE  following  speeches  deal  with  questions  of  current 
American  politics  from  1871  to  1889,  and  they  embody,  to 
some  extent,  the  political  history  of  the  country  during 
this  period.  The  greater  part  of  them  will  particularly 
interest  the  surviving  associates  and  friends  of  the  men 
who  withdrew  from  the  Republican  party  in  1872,  and 
thenceforward  remained  outside  of  its  fold ;  for  they 
set  forth  with  clearness  and  force  the  reasons  which 
prompted  them  to  this  memorable  revolt  against  organ 
ized  intolerance  and  political  greed,  and  made  their  re 
turn  impossible.  Although  the  party  still  lives,  it  has 
completely  outlasted  the  causes  which  produced  it  and 
made  it  a  necessity,  while  in  the  clear  mirror  of  his 
tory  and  the  light  of  existing  facts  it  is  now  seen  that  the 
old  rallying-cry  of  "reform  within  the  party"  was  a 
false  pretense  and  a  mischievous  delusion. 

The  controversial  papers  which  follow  the  speeches 
sufficiently  disclose  the  occasion  for  writing  them,  and 
fairly  indicate  the  character  and  material  points  of  the 
articles  to  which  they  reply.  The  historical  paper  which 
closes  the  volume  is  one  of  numerous  magazine  articles, 
and  is  reprinted  because  it  deals  with  a  vital  political 
question,  and  is  believed  to  be  a  real  contribution  to  the 
truth  of  history. 


CONTENTS. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1872. 

PAGE. 

Speech  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  Indianapolis,  on  the  12th  of  June.         .       1 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY. 
Delivered  at  Rockville,  September  13,  1873.  , 27 

THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED. 

Delivered  at  various  points  in  Michigan  and  Iowa,  in  the  year  1874.  .     58 

EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM. 

Delivered  at  an  Anti-Slavery  Reunion  in  Greensboro,  on  the  14th  of  Octo 
ber,  1875 •'.        .79 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM. 

Delivered  in  the  Grand  Opera  House,  Indianapolis,  on  the  26th  of  August, 

1876 106 

THE  FRAUD  OF  1876. 
Delivered  at  Indianapolis,  on  the  8th  of  January,  1877.       .         . ,       .         .  141 

THE  ISSUES  OF  1880— CHARACTER  OF  THE  CANDIDATES. 
Delivered  in  the  Wigwam,  at  Indianapolis,  on  the  24th  of  August.     .         .  176 


VI  CONTENTS. 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM. 

PAGE. 

Delivered  at  Indianapolis,  on  the  28th  of  August,  1884.       ....  215 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY. 
Read  before  the  Hendricks  Club,  on  the  18th  of  September,  1888.         .         .  239 


SELECT  PAPERS. 

REPLY  TO  HON.  TIMOTHY  O.  HOWE. 
New  York  World  of  May  7,  1878. .266 

REPLIES  TO  HON.  CARL  SCHURZ. 

New  York  World  and  New  York  Sun,  in  the  Spring  of  1883.       .        .        .270 

THE  LIMNING  OF  STEPHEN  W.  DORSEY. 
Published  in  various  Leading  Newspapers  in  January,  1888.       .         .         .  297 

WEBSTER  AND  ELAINE :     HISTORIC  JUSTICE. 
From  the  Magazine  of  Western  History,  September,  1888 308 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1872. 


SPEECH  AT  THE  ACADEMY  OF  Music,  INDIANAPOLIS,  ON  THE 
I2TH  OF  JUNE,  1872. 


[This  speech  opened  the  campugi  for  Greeley,  and  forcibly  presented  the 
issues  from  the  Liberal  Republican  standpoint.  The  formidable  secession 
from  the  Republican  party  which  occurred  this  year,  headed  by  its  chief  found 
ers  and  fathers,  was  an  event  of  historic  significance,  and  the  grounds  of  the 
movement,  which  provoked  so  much  parly  exasperation  at  the  time,  can  now 
be  dispassionately  considered.] 

Fellow  Citizens:  The  political  situation  to-day  is,  indeed, 
novel  and  peculiar.  It  invites  our  careful  study,  and  de 
mands  an  intelligent  solution.  When  I  was  in  California,  a 
few  years  since,  I  was  very  much  interested  in  the  rugged 
and  volcanic  look  of  the  earth's  surface  in  certain  remark 
able  localities.  Bowlders  of  immense  size,  and  rock  of  every 
conceivable  character  and  shape  were  tumbled  together  in 
the  wildest  confusion  and  the  strangest  fellowship.  It  was  a 
striking  illustration  of  what  is  sometimes  called  "  confusion 
worse  confounded,"  and  it  forcibly  reminds  me  of  the  pres 
ent  state  of  our  politics.  It  is  difficult  to  realize  what  we 
witness  daily,  when  we  remember  the  absolute  party  discip 
line  which  for  so  many  years  has  marshaled  the  people 
against  each  other  like  two  hostile  armies.  Politically  men 
are  now  assorted  so  oddly  as  to  excite  both  surprise  and 
amusement.  Those  who  have  been  strongly  united  through 
long  years  of  intense  party  warfare  are  now  separated,  while 
those  who  have  been  divided  into  fiercely  contending  camps 
are  united.  This  is  true  alike  of  our  party  leaders  and  of  the 
masses,  and  the  spectacle  presented  is  one  of  such  apparent 


2  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

confusion  and  bewilderment  that  many  find  the  path  of  pres 
ent  duty  considerably  tangled  and  obscure. 

The  problem,  however,  is  easily  solved.  The  student  of 
American  politics  who  looks  beneath  the  surface  of  things, 
and  remembers  the  history  of  parties  in  this  country,  can  not 
fail  to  see  that  we  are  in  the  midst  of  one  of  our  periodical  po 
litical  revolutions.  Through  the  sudden  upheaval  of  our  poli 
tics,  we  have  entered  upon  a  new  epoch,  very  clearly  foreshad 
owing  the  radical  reconstruction  of  parties  on  the  new  and 
living  questions  of  the  times.  Parties  can  not  live  forever. 
Political  parties  are  not  immortal,  as  Senator  Morton  seerns 
to  believe.  They  have  their  time  to  be  born,  and  their  ap 
pointed  time  to  die.  They  are  called  into  life  by  certain 
public  exigencies  which  are  now  and  then  evolved  from  the 
ceaseless  activity  and  inevitable  vicissitudes  of  our  national 
affairs,  and  when  these  exigencies  pass  away  the  parties  them 
selves  must  perish.  If  they  do  not,  they  at  once  degenerate 
into  mere  factions,  the  great  bane  of  Republics,  and  ought 
to  be  exterminated.  Take  the  old  Federal  party  as  an  illus 
tration.  It  was  a  grand  old  party  in  some  respects,  and  had 
the  support  of  as  strong  and  true  men  as  ever  lived  ;  but 
when  its  work  was  done  it  passed  away.  The  old  Whig 
party  had  its  day,  struggling  manfully  for  certain  special 
measures  of  policy,  but  when  the  nation  finally  pronounced 
against  them  the  party  died  and  was  buried.  The  old  Free- 
soil  party,  born  of  the  question  of  slavery  in  our  national 
territories,  had  its  day,  and  it  was  a  day  of  great  usefulness. 
It  was  a  sort  of  political  John  the  Baptist,  preparing  the  way 
for  the  mightier  organization  which  followed  ;  but  when  this 
was  done,  it  was  translated  into  the  Republican  party,  which 
it  first  committed  to  the  essential  articles  of  its  faith.  The 
Know-Nothing  party  had  its  day,  and  a  dark  day  it  was, 
and,  thank  the  Lord,  a  short  day;  and  then  it  also  died. 
The  Republican  party  had  its  birth  in  the  organized  at 
tempt  to  withstand  the  further  aggressions  of  the  slave 
power ;  but  as  slavery  now  sleeps  in  its  bloody  shroud  the 
mission  of  the  party  is  ended,  and  its  time*  to  die  has  come. 


LIBERAL  REPUBLICANISM.  3 

How  can  a  man  live  when  the  breath  has  gone  out  of  his 
body?  How  can  a  party  survive  when  the  work  which  gave 
it  life  has  been  accomplished  and  irrevocably  settled?  My 
friends,  the  Republican  party  is  a  spent  political  force.  It 
is  an  "  organized  epitaph.''  It  is  to-day  as  dead  as  the  bones 
of  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  and  its  issues  as  perfectly  gone  as 
those  of  the  Mexican  war.  And  the  trouble  with  the  fol 
lowers  of  General  Grant  is  that  they  are  to-day  standing  in 
the  ruts  of  the  past,  or  moving  along  in  the  same  old  party 
grooves,  through  the  mere  force  of  party  traditions  and  the 
memory  of  past  conflicts,  while  the  supporters  of  Horace 
Greeley  have  the  sagacity  to  perceive  the  real  situation,  and 
the  courage  to  take  their  stand  on  the  broad  level  of  inde 
pendent  and  untrammeled  political  action. 

Gentlemen,  am  I  not  right  in  these  views?  Is  it  reason 
able  to  preserve  and  garnish  the  scaffolding  around  an  edi 
fice  after  it  has  been  finished?  If  Christianity  were  estab 
lished  throughout  the  earth  would  the  organization  and  ma 
chinery  of  our  religious  denominations  be  any  longer  needed  ? 
The  champions  of  General  Grant  seem  to  forget  that  a  po 
litical  party  is  not  an  end,  but  a  means  ;  that  it  is  simply  the 
instrument  through  which  some  desirable  purpose  is  sought 
to  be  accomplished,-  I  respectfully  commend  to  them  the 
views  of  Gerrit  Smith,  now  their  favorite  idol,  as  he  ex 
pressed  himself  in  1869.  Here  is  what  he  then  said: 

"A  very  lamentable  evil  is  the  education  of  the  people  into  the  belief  that 
a  perm-anent  political  party  is  a  great  good  ;  and,  therefore,  that  such  a  party 
as  the  Republican  or  Democratic  ought  not  to  be  broken  up.  But  a  permanent 
political  party,  with  the  constant  tendency  of  every  such  p  irty  to  deterioration, 
is  a  heavy  curse — for  it  plants  itself  with  great,  and  too  frequently  wiih  in 
vincible  power,  in  the  way  of  all  progress,  and  clings  for  its  own  existence  to 
the  wrongs  with  which  it  is  identified.  No  other  but  temporary  political  par 
ties  are  justifiable — no  other  but  such  as  occasions  call  for." 

Our  Grant  friends  who  are  so  industriously  peddling  Mr. 
Smith's  late  speech  at  Petersboro,  are  respectfully  invited  to 
ponder  the  words  of  their  champion,  as  I  have  quoted  them. 
I  do  not  say  that  political  parties  are  an  evil  in  themselves. 
I  do  not  deny  their  usefulness.  The  point  which  I  empha- 


4  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

size  is,  that  they  are  temporary  formations,  which  are  to  be 
dispensed  with  just  as  soon  as  the  occasions  which  produced 
them  have  passed  away.  In  the  very  nature  of  things  they 
can  not  be  permanent ;  and  I  am  surprised  that  so  wise  a 
man  as  Charles  Sumner,  in  the  year  1860,  prophesied  that 
the  Republican  party,  after  the  accomplishment  of  its  im 
mediate  work  in  dealing  with  slavery,  would  be  "  filled  with 
higher  life,"  and  ''lifted  to  yet  other  efforts,"  which  would 
demand  its  continued  existence.  In  this  prophecy  Mr.  Sum 
ner  uttered  the  dream  of  a  philanthropist,  and  not  the  sober 
judgment  of  a  statesman.  Gentlemen,  every  one  of  you  will 
admit,  on  a  moment's  reflection,  that  in  the  very  fact  that  the 
Republican  party  was  created  to  deal  with  the  single  ques 
tion  of  slavery,  and  would  not  have  existed  without  it ;  in  the 
very  fact  that  all  its  energies  were  constantly  directed  to  the 
settlement  of  this  single  question,  and  its  whole  heart  con 
stantly  absorbed  in  the  problem,  it  necessarily  became  un 
qualified  and  unfitted  to  deal  with  other  vital  questions  which 
would  follow.  Its  very  education  and  training  could  not  fail 
to  be  a  hindrance,  instead  of  a  help,  in  the  solution  of  other 
problems.  A  political  party  is  not  like  a  machine,  which 
you  can  apply  to  a  new  task.  You  might  as  well  say  that  a 
man  who  has  learned  how  to  make  a  watch  has  qualified 
himself  to  build  a  ship.  I  have  said  that  parties  are  created 
by  new  exigencies,  and  these  exigencies  naturally  require 
organizations  composed  of  the  fragments  of  dead  parties, 
which  are  drawn  together  by  the  growing  sense  of  public 
necessity.  Do  you  ask  for  confirmation  of  what  I  say? 
You  have  it,  as  I  have  shown,  in  the  history  of  parties  in  the 
United  States.  And  you  have  it  in  palpable  facts  now  before 
the  country.  The  special  work  of  the  Republican  party  has 
been  concluded  for  some  years,  and  it  has  applied  itself  to 
other  tasks.  Has  it  shown  itself  able  to  deal  with  them? 
Has  it  not  failed,  and  shamefully  failed,  in  dealing  with 
the  question  of  civil  service  reform?  Has  it  not  equally 
failed  in  dealing  with  the  tariff  question?  Has  not  is 
land  policy  been  a  disgrace  to  our  legislation,  and  a  con- 


LIBERAL   REPUBLICANISM.  5 

spiracy  against  coming  generations?  Has  our  financial  pol 
icy,  including  our  system  of  national  banks,  been  a  remark 
able  success?  Is  not  the  Republican'  party  to-day  the  hired 
man  of  corporations  and  associated  wealth?  Is  it  not  the 
party  of  aristocracy  and  privilege,  settling  down  into  the 
tracks  of  the  old  Federal  party?  Do  you  not  see,  gentle 
men,  the  absolute  need  of  political  reconstruction? 

But  let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  honor  the  Republi 
can  party  for  all  its  grand  and  glorious  work.  I  preached 
its  doctrines  long  years  before  it  dared  live.  I  sustained  all 
its  grand  measures  of  war  and  reconstruction  during  its  days 
of  trial.  If  I  differed  with  it,  it  was  because  I  espoused  its 
vital  doctrines  and  policy  before  it  was  ready  to  accept  them. 
I  gave  it  my  dedicated  energy  and  zeal  in  putting  down  a 
mighty  civil  war,  in  emancipating  four  millions  of  slaves,  and 
in  establishing  the  principle  of  universal  equality  before  the 
law  throughout  the  republic.  I  have  no  interest,  certainly, 
in  turning  my  back  upon  the  past,  and  no  motive  whatever 
for  plucking  a  single  laurel  from  the  brow  of  the  Republican 
party.  I  can  well  understand  the  feeling  which  prompts  the 
members  of  this  old  party  to  cling  to  its  traditions,  and  rev 
erently  cherish  the  memory  of  its  achievements.  I  can  per 
fectly  understand,  also,  how  naturally  its  glorious  success 
has  given  to  the  organization  a  momentum  that  outlasts  its 
mission.  And  yet  I  must  repeat  all  I  have  said  as  to  the 
complete  accomplishment  of  its  work,  and  the  necessity  of 
facing  the  fact,  however  unwelcome,  that  henceforth  it  has 
only  a  place  in  history.  Let  it  have  an  honorable  place. 
Let  no  man  grudge  it  the  honors  with  which  history  is  sure 
to  crown  it ;  but  let  it  now  go  down  to  its  grave  in  peace, 
and  not,  as  did  the  old  Whig  party,  survive  its  integrity  and 
moral  influence  by  throwing  itself  across  the  track  of  prog 
ress.  Its  career  has  been  a  marvelous  one,  and  its  acts  are 
not  all  of  them  safe  precedents.  In  facing  the  great  trials 
and  responsibilities  which  the  war  imposed  it  was  tempted  to 
resort  to  extraordinary  measures.  It  dealt  with  a  very  strong 
hand.  It  accustomed  itself  to  know  no  law  but  its  own  will, 


O  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

and  to  stretch  the  constitution  itself,  in  some  instances,  in  the 
prosecution  of  its  purposes.  Even  since  the  war  it  has 
trampled  down  the  principle  of  local  self-government,  and 
carried  the  policy  of  centralization  to  the  most  alarming 
lengths.  It  has  no  right  to  press  these  mistakes  upon  the 
country  as  rightful  constitutional  measures.  It  is  neither 
just  nor  politic  to  thrust  them  upon  the  people  of  the  South, 
if  reconciliation  and  peace  are  to  be  sought  between  the  two 
sections  of  our  country.  The  training  of  the  Republican 
party  was  that  of  war.  Its  spirit  was  antagonism  ;  and  in  the 
very  nature  of  things  it  can  not  now  be  made  the  instrument 
of  concord  and  union.  The  work  it  had  in  hand  during  the 
conflict  was  thoroughly  done  ;  but  the  work  of  peace,  of  fra 
ternity,  of  a  restored  Union  and  constitutional  civil  govern 
ment  belongs  now  to  quite  other  agencies,  and  far  different 
instrumentalities.  What  the  nation  needs  to-day  is  amnesty, 
complete  reconciliation,  and  oblivion  of  the  past;  and  it  is 
both  logically  and  morally  impossible  that  these  precious 
blessings  can  come  through  the  continued  life  of  the  Repub 
lican  party. 

But,  gentlemen,  perhaps  some  of  you  feel  a  little  curious 
to  know  what  I  have  to  say  about  Democrats  and  the  Demo 
cratic  party.  I  shall  not  ignore  this  topic,  though  there  is 
less  occasion  to  dwell  upon  it.  My  chief  purpose,  to-day,  is 
to  appeal  to  my  old  Republican  friends  ;  but  I  rejoice  to  find 
Democrats,  in  every  section  of  our  country,  rallying  to  the 
support  of  Horace  Greeley,  a  veteran  Republican  journalist, 
and  an  honest  man.  I  rejoice,  also,  to  find  them,  with  equal 
unanimity,  standing  on  the  Cincinnati  platform.  They  are 
thus  publicly  committed,  as  a  finality,  to  the  Thirteenth  Con 
stitutional  Amendment,  abolishing  slavery  in  the  United 
States  forever  ;  to  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  which  recog 
nizes  the  negro  as  a  citizen,  secures  to  him  the  equal  protec 
tion  of  the  law,  guarantees  the  validity  of  the  public  debt, 
and  forbids  the  United  States,  or  any  State,  from  assuming 
or  paying  any  debt  incurred  in  aid  of  insurrection  or  rebel 
lion,  or  any  claim  for  the  loss  or  emancipation  of  any  slave ; 


LIBERAL  REPUBLICANISM.  7 

and  to  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  which  arms  our  emanci 
pated  millions  with  the  ballot.  This,  gentlemen,  is  the  Dem 
ocratic  gospel  to-day  throughout  the  land  :  and  when  the 
Democratic  party  thus  turns  its  back  upon  all  that  portion  of 
the  past  which  has  been  offensive  to  Republicans,  and  com 
mits  itself  unequivocally  to  wise  and  just  measures  respect 
ing  living  issues,  it  sets  an  example  which  I  would  gladly 
have  the  Republican  party  imitate.  It  confesses  that  its  mis 
sion,  as  a  party  of  the  past,  is  ended,  and  comes  forward 
itself  with  the  honorable  proposition  to  fraternize  with  all 
who  will  join  it  in  the  endeavor  to  reorganize  and  reconstruct 
the  parties  of  the  future.  I  rejoice  at  this,  and  it  seems  to 
me  thai  every  good  man  ought  to  rejoice  ;  for  if  our  Demo 
cratic  friends  to-day  had  persisted  in  the  desperate  party 
madness  which  characterizes  the  champions  of  General 
Grant,  nothing  could  be  hoped  for  but  interminable  discord 
and  strife  between  the  lately  warring  states  of  this  Union. 
But,  gentlemen,  shall  I  quarrel  with  Democrats  for  taking  a 
right  position?  Shall  I  imitate  Senator  Morton  by  black 
guarding  and  insulting  them  because  they  assume  a  position 
which  for  years  past  we  have  been  pleading  with  them  to 
accept?  Shall  I  tell  them  they  are  hypocrites,  when  they 
declare  they  have  turned  their  backs  upon  the  past,  and  are 
willing  to  stand  with  us  in  the  issues  of  the  present?  When, 
let  me  ask,  would  quarrels  ever  come  to  an  end,  if,  when 
one  party  proposes  peace,  the  other  charges  him  with  du 
plicity,  and  insists  upon  fighting  it  out  to  the  bitter  end?  I 
appeal  to  the  justice  and  common  sense  of  my  old  Repub 
lican  friends,  and  ask  them  when  the  Democrats  of  the  South 
and  the  Democrats  of  the  North  propose  to  join  us  in  march 
ing  out  of  the  graveyard  of  dead  issues,  whether  we  ought 
not  to  meet  them  in  a  fraternal  spirit?  When  they  offer 
us  the  pipe  of  peace  shall  we  give  them  the  tomahawk  and 
the  scalping-knife?  Senator  Morton  tells  us  that  the  issue 
to-day  is  the  same  old  issue  between  the  boys  in  blue  and 
the  boys  in  gray.  Is  this  true  or  is  it  false?  Why,  my 
friends,  thousands  and  thousands  of  the  boys  in  blue  and 


8  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

the  boys  in  gray  have  gone  down  to  their  graves  since  the 
bloody  conflict  ended.  The  fourth  part  of  a  whole  gener 
ation  of  men  has  passed  away  ;  while  thousands  and  thou 
sands  of  those  who  were  mere  children  and  boys  during  the 
struggle  have  now  come  to  the  political  front,  innocent  of 
any  part  in  the  bloody  drama,  and  with  a  constitutional  right 
to  be  heard  in  the  settlement  of  the  great  questions  of  the 
time.  Gentlemen,  I  piiy  the  public  man  who  tells  you  that 
the  old  bitterness  and  strife  of  the  past  must  still  dominate 
in  our  politics,  and  who  seeks  to  continue  his  hold  on  office 
and  power  at  the  expense  of  the  nation's  peace.  You  will 
all  agree  with  me  that  peace  between  the  two  sections  must 
come  some  time.  You  will  all  agree  with  me  that  the  law  of 
hate  is  not  the  higher  law  among  men,  which  must  be  per 
petuated  in  our  republic.  Tell  me,  you  followers  of  General 
Grant  and  devotees  of  Judaism  in  politics,  what  sort  of  a 
union  do  you  desire  between  the  North  and  the  South?  Do 
you  want  to  make  another  Ireland  of  the  South?  Do  you 
want  a  union  symbolized  by  two  hostile  armies,  threatening 
each  other  with  slaughter,  and  only  held  back  for  a  fit  op 
portunity  to  strike?  Do  you  want  a  union  like  that  between 
the  Jews  and  Samaritans,  or  the  old  Anglo-Saxons  and  Nor 
mans,  or  the  Orangemen  and  Ribbonmen?  What  sort  of  a 
restored  union  did  we  fight  for?  Was  it  not  a  real  union  of 
hearts  and  of  hands,  cemented  by  common  affections,  by  the 
spirit  of  brotherhood,  and  by  the  aspirations  of  the  people  of 
every  section  of  the  land  for  the  national  well-being? 

But,  you  insist  that  the  Democrats  are  insincere.  You 
say  they  have  mounted  the  Cincinnati  platform  deceitfully, 
and  as  a  means  of  regaining  power.  You  say  they  are  sup 
porting  Greeley  from  compulsion,  and  have  simply  changed 
their  base  because  they  are  weary  of  wrestling  with  fate  and 
kicking  against  thunder.  I  have  already  said  that  I  do  not 
approve  of  this  method  of  dealing  with  men  who  assume  a 
right  position.  You  yourselves  do  not  adopt  it  respecting 
the  Democrats  who  have  espoused  the  cause  of  General 
Grant.  You  believe  in  the  sincerity  of  the  rebel  officer  who 


LIBERAL   REPUBLICANISM.  9 

presided  over  your  national  convention.  You  doubtless  be 
lieve  Mosby  to  be  a  patriot,  and  Governor  Orr,  of  South 
Carolina,  and  other  ex-rebels  of  the  South  whom  I  could 
name,  who  are  now  supporting  your  cause.  Why,  then,  do 
you  take  it  for  granted  that  Democrats  who  support  Greeley 
are  hypocrites?  If  a  Democrat  can  be  sincere  in  supporting 
Grant,  and  standing  on  the  Philadelphia  platform,  why  not 
allow  that  he  may  be  equally  sincere  in  supporting  Greeley, 
and  standing  on  the  Cincinnati  platform? 

But  let  me  agree  now,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that 
our  Democratic  friends  are  insincere,  and  that  they  adopt 
their  present  tactics  from  the  mere  force  of  political  necessity. 
Giving  you  the  full  benefit  of  this  argument,  let  us  apply  it 
on  all  sides  and  see  how  it  affects  you.  You  Grant  men 
were  generally  members  of  the  old  Whig  party,  because  the 
Republican  party  in  the  main  was  formed  out  of  old  Whig 
material.  Now  I  ask  you  why  you  gave  up  your  old  party 
and  joined  a  new  one?  When  your  party  perished,  why  did 
you  unite  with  the  olJ  Free-soilers  in  organizing  a  new  party, 
called  the  Republican  party?  You  did  it  because  you  could 
not  help  yourselves.  Politically,  there  was  nothing  else  for 
you  to  do.  But  did  I  or  any  other  old  Free-soiler  abuse  you 
for  it?  Did  we  impugn  your  motives?  Did  we  tell  you  you 
were  eleventh-hour  men  and  hypocrites,  ashamed  of  your 
party,  joining  our  ranks  because  you  could  not  help  your 
selves,  and  plotting  your  way  into  office  and  power?  Not  a 
word  of  it.  We  were  right  glad  to  see  you.  We  welcomed 
you  into  our  ranks,  and  turned  you  to  pretty  good  account 
afterward  as  Republicans.  We  were  not  fools  enough  to  de 
nounce  and  traduce  you  for  offering  us  your  help  which  we 
so  greatly  needed,  and  so  rejoicingly  accepted. 

The  Democrats,  you  say,  are  taking  the  right  side  now 
from  compulsion.  Let  me  deal  with  this  argument  still  fur 
ther.  Why,  I  ask  you,  did  the  Republican  party  abolish 
slavery  during  the  war?  Was  it  done  through  the  motive 
power  of  philanthropy,  or  the  impulse  of  humanity  toward 
the  negro?  Was  it  the  embodied  virtue  of  the  Republican 


IO  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

party  that  did  it?  Every  Republican  and  every  Democrat 
knows  the  answer.  The  party  abolished  slavery  because  it 
could  not  help  it.  For  nearly  two  years  of  the  war,  with 
Abraham  Lincoln  at  its  head,  it  tried  with  all  its  might  not 
to  do  it.  It  tried,  with  all  its  might,  to  save  the  Union  and 
save  slavery  with  it.  When  I  introduced  measures  in  Con 
gress  for  the  repeal,  or  even  modification,  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Act,  they  were  overwhelmingly  voted  down.  When 
the  contrabands  came  throngi  ig  to  our  military  lines,  tender 
ing  us  the  secrets  of  the  rebel  cause  and  the  aid  of  their  mus 
cles  in  fighting  their  old  masters,  they  were  driven  from  our 
camps  by  our  Republican  generals,  while  fugitives  were 
sent  back  to  their  rebel  masters.  We,  like  the  rebels  of  the 
South,  were  fighting  for  slavery.  But  when  the  nation  was 
finally  in  danger  of  perishing  in  the  Red  Sea  into  which  sla 
very  had  plunged  it,  and  we  could  neither  save  the  country 
nor  ourselves  without  clutching  at  black  ropes,  the  Republi 
can  party  became  an  anti-slavery  party.  It  armed  the  negro 
as  a  soldier,  and  set  him  to  shooting  at  his  old  master.  It 
struck  at  the  institution  of  slavery  through  our  confiscation 
laws.  Through  Abraham  Lincoln  it  issued  its  proclamation 
of  emancipation,  and  it  finally  consummated  the  work  by  the 
Thirteenth  Constitutional  Amendment.  My  old  Republican 
friends,  therefore,  when  they  charge  Democrats  with  acting 
from  compulsion,  can  not  fail  to  see  how  justly  the  compli 
ment  may  be  returned.  I  speak,  of  course,  of  the  Republi 
can  party  as  such.  I  except,  of  course,  the  old  Free-soil  and 
abolition  element  in  that  party,  which,  from  the  beginning, 
recognized  slavery  as  the  guilty  cause  of  the  war,  and  the 
grand  obstacle  to  peace.  But  the  Republican  party,  as  such, 
did  nothing,  I  repeat,  for  the  slave,  except  upon  compulsion. 
And  notwithstanding  its  loud  and  continued  boast  to-day  that 
it  gave  freedom  to  four  millions  of  slaves,  the  honor  which  it 
earned  is  simply  that  which  pertains  to  a  great  and  benefi 
cent  act  which  could  not  be  avoided  by  the  part}7  that  per 
formed  it. 

Gentlemen,  this  argument  will  not  avail   the  followers  of 


LIBERAL  REPUBLICANISM.  II 

General  Grant.  It  is  a  two-edged  sword,  cutting  them  quite 
as  severely  as  it  cuts  Democrats.  But  neither  should  shrink 
from  its  fair  application.  The  truth  is,  men  often  adopt  a 
course  of  action  from  compulsion,  and  afterward  espouse  it 
from  conviction,  and  maintain  it  with  enthusiasm.  I  have 
already  referred  to  the  reluctance  with  which  our  old  Whig 
friends  joined  the  Republican  party,  but  when  they  finally 
did  so,  and  repudiated  their  servility  to  slavery,  they  gave 
their  whole  hearts  to  the  very  cause  they  had  so  bitterly  op 
posed.  With  what  hesitation  and  anxious  misgivings  did 
Mr.  Lincoln  make  up  his  mind  to  strike  at  slavery  as  a  meas 
ure  of  war.  But  when  he  finally  did  it,  his  heart  and  con 
science  and  judgment  came  to  his  support  and  made  him 
desperately  in  earnest.  I  have  referred  to  the  anxious  desire 
of  the  Republican  party  to  spare  slavery  ;  but  does  any  man 
doubt  that,  after  it  had  made  up  its  mind  to  destroy  it,  Re 
publicans  gradually  became  convinced  of  the  righteousness 
of  the  policy  and  the  wrong  of  slavery?  What  multitudes  of 
our  people  longed  to  avoid  the  conflict  with  the  South,  and 
espoused  the  cause  of  the  government  with  hesitation  and 
doubt,  and  yet  afterward  became  the  most  pronounced  and 
uncompromising  Unionists.  In  our  Revolutionary  struggle 
thousands  espoused  the  cause  of  Independence  through  a 
virtual  compulsion,  but  after  they  had  embarked  in  what 
seemed  to  them  a  desperate  enterprise,  they  maintained  it 
with  all  the  fervor  which  patriotism  could  inspire.  There  is 
often  a  measure  of  selfishness  in  the  most  praiseworthy  acts 
of  men,  while  enlightened  selfishness  is  not  inconsistent  with 
justice  and  the-  public  good.  And  let  me  remind  you,  my 
old  Republican  friends,  who  are  so  unforgiving  toward  Dem 
ocrats,  that  you  yourselves  have  some  cause  to  judge  them 
with  charity.  Our  bloody  war  with  the  South  was  the  child 
of  slavery,  and  you,  as  well  as  others,  had  your  share  of 
guilty  complicity  with  it.  For  long  years  you  abetted  its 
monstrous  pretensions  by  your  political  action.  You  de 
nounced  and  opposed  all  opposition  to  it.  You  did  every 
thing  in  your  power  to  make  the  slavery  of  the  South  our 


I  2  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

slavery.  We  have  all  done  our  part  in  pampering  the  insti 
tution  into  madness,  and  tempting  it  into  its  evil  deeds.  Ger- 
rit  Smith  used  to  say  that  we  ought  to  pay  for  the  slaves  of 
the  South  on  the  principle  of  "  honor  among  thieves."  And 
can  you  remember  your  political  partnership  with  the  rebels 
of  the  South,  whom  you  now  denounce,  and  the  Democrats, 
whom  you  distrust,  and  tell  them  they  are  incapable  of  re 
pentance,  while  wrapping  yourselves  in  the  robes  of  self- 
righteousness? 

But  our  Republican  friends  say  that  they  can  not  work 
alongside  of  Democrats.  They  say  the  conduct  of  those 
men  during  the  war  was  such  that  they  can  neither  forgive 
it  nor  identify  themselves  with  the  movement  in  which  they 
are  the  principal  element.  They  say  that  if  Greeley  is 
elected  President  the  great  body  of  his  supporters  will  be 
Democrats  ;  that  he  himself  will  become  their  instrument, 
and  the  Democratic  party  will  find  its  way  back  to  power. 
Let  us  dispassionately  consider  these  objections.  My  old 
Republican  friends,  let  me  ask  you  why  this  dreadful  appre 
hension  of  Democratic  contamination?  Since  when  did  you 
become  so  sensitive  and  gingerly  as  to  your  political  associa 
tions?  Let  us  consider  the  matter  in  the  light  of  known 
facts.  I  refer,  in  the  first  place,  to  a  little  matter  of  history 
which  my  old  Free-soil  friends  have  not  forgotten.  In  1849 
I  was  elected  to  Congress  from  what  was  known  as  the 
"  Burnt  District"  by  a  political  combination.  I  was  nomi 
nated  by  the  Free-soil  party  of  that  district,  but  the  great 
body  of  my  supporters  were  Democrats.  Did  I  become  a 
tool  of  these  Democrats  and  betray  the  anti-slavery  cause  in 
Congress?  No  man  of  any  party,  in  the  district  or  out  of  it, 
ever  made  such  an  accusation.  About  the  same  time  Chase 
was  sent  to  the  United  States  Senate  for  six  years  by  a  handful 
of  Free-soilers  in  combination  with  Democrats  in  the  Legisla 
ture  of  Ohio.  Did  he  become  a  Democrat  and  turn  his  back 
upon  his  anti-slavery  professions?  The  whole  country  knows 
how  grandly  he  fought  Douglas  and  Buchanan  and  the  slave 
power  during  the  whole  of  his  Senatorial  term.  Some  twenty- 


LIBERAL   REPUBLICANISM.  13 

one  years  ago  Charles  Sumner  was  first  elected  to  the  Sen 
ate  of  the  United  States  by  a  combination  of  conscience 
Whigs,  Free-soilers  and  Democrats,  the  latter  forming  the 
great  body  of  his  supporters.  Has  Charles  Sumner  ever 
wavered  as  the  advocate  and  champion  of  freedom?  Has 
he  ever  been  the  tool  of  any  man,  or  faction,  or  party?  I 
need  not  answer  the  question.  Let  me  come  nearer  home, 
and  refer  to  later  events.  In  1856  the  Republicans  of  Indi 
ana  nominated  Oliver  P.  Morton  as  their  candidate  for  gov 
ernor.  If  my  recollection  serves  me,  he  came  to  us  from  the 
Democratic  party,  and  had  been  a  very  distasteful  specimen 
of  a  Democratic  politician.  He  tells  us,  to-day,  that  Liberal 
Republicans  are  all  sore-heads,  and  that  every  man  who  went 
to  the  Cincinnati  Convention  had  a  plaster  on  his  cranium. 
But  when  he  came  over  to  us  he  had  been  a  candidate  for 
office  in  the  Democratic  party  every  year,  from  the  time  he 
became  of  age  till  he  joined  us.  The  truth  is,  he  had  soured 
on  his  party  friends,  who  were  quite  willing  to  surrender 
their  claims  on  him  to  us.  His  head  at  that  time  needed  a 
plaster  almost  as  badly  as  his  moral  character  has  done  ever 
since.  But  with  all  his  sins,  political  and  moral,  we  took 
him  and  made  him  our  standard-bearer  in  that  memorable 
campaign.  Indeed,  wherever  we  could  persuade  a  Demo 
crat  to  join  us,  we  gave  him  a  cordial  welcome.  If  we  saw 
a  Democrat  coming  toward  us,  we  wooed  him  onward,  took 
him  into  our  political  embrace,  and  bestowed  upon  him  our 
fondest  caresses.  You  know  how  many  prominent  Demo 
crats,  in  the  different  states  in  the  Union,  joined  our  ranks, 
and  how  glad  we  all  were  to  receive  them.  When  the  war 
came  they  were  equally  welcome,  and  we  made  brigadier 
and  major-generals  of  a  goodly  number  of  them.  Ben.  F. 
Butler,  who  had  voted  for  Jefferson  Davis  fifty-eight  times  in 
the  Charleston  Convention,  became  a  converted  political  sin 
ner,  and  we  turned  him  to  the  best  account  we  could  during 
the  war.  Of  course,  his  conversion  was  genuine,  for  he  now 
supports  Ulysses  S.  Grant!  General  Dix,  General  Rose- 
crans,  and  scores  of  others  were  Democrats,  and  we  were 


14  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

glad  to  get  their  help  in  fighting  the  rebels.  General  Grant 
himself  was  a  Democrat,  and  his  Republican  followers  would 
do  well  to  remember  this  while  boasting  that  the  Republican, 
party  put  down  the  rebellion.  Indeed,  I  think  the  boast 
a  questionable  one,  since  we  were  not  certain  that  if  the 
Democrats  who  gave  us  their  help  had  served  the  rebels  as 
zealously  as  they  served  us,  the  Union  cause  would  have 
triumphed.  The  boast,  at  all  events,  is  not  altogether  con 
sistent  with  the  claim  now  constantly  made  that  General 
Grant  is  the  savior  of  the  country,  for  he  never  voted  except 
for  Buchanan,  in  1856,  when  the  Republican  party  was 
struggling  into  life,  and  never  became  a  Republican,  accord 
ing  to  Colonel  Forney,  until  he  was  made  one  by  the  bribe 
of  the  Presidency,  and  the  assurance  that  he  should  have  it 
for  two  terms. 

My  friends,  in  the  light  of  these  facts,  which  could  read 
ily  be  multiplied,  how  are  we  to  account  for  this  nervous 
dread  of  cooperating  with  Democrats?  And  if  they  were 
good  enough  to  fight  with  us  during  the  war,  why  are  they 
not  good  enough  to  vote  with  us  after  the  war  is  over,  if  we 
are  agreed  as  to  public  questions?  And  what  pretense  of 
decency  can  there  be  in  shunning  political  association  with 
Democrats  who  support  Greeley,  when  we  find  you  hand-in- 
glove  with  the  same  naughty  people  who  are  willing  to  sup 
port  Grant?  Should  not  a  decent  respect  for  the  opinions  of 
mankind  make  you  ashamed  of  such  pitiful  subterfuges? 
How  is  it  that  you  are  willing  to  fellowship  one  class  of  Dem 
ocrats  and  at  the  same  time  denounce  Liberal  Republicans 
for  associating  with  another  class,  whose  political  prin 
ciples  and  antecedents  are  the  same?  And  how  is  it,  that 
through  all  the  years  since  the  Republican  party  was  formed, 
you  have  been  so  willing  to  accept  the  help  of  Democrats  in 
detail,  or  in  small  squads,  while  you  now  blaze  with  indig 
nation  at  the  idea  of  welcoming  the  whole  body  of  Demo 
crats  in  the  nation?  Can  some  of  you  Grant  men  solve  this 
problem?  Can  you  tell  me  why  you  consider  it  a  capital 
thing  to  have  caught  a  few  straggling  Democrats  now  and 


LIBERAL  REPUBLICANISM.  15 

then,  during  the  past  sixteen  years,  while  yet  you  count  it  a 
fearful  disaster  for  the  whole  body  of  Democrats  to  join  you  I 
I  say,  shame  upon  such  logic,  and  such  political  morality  I 
Do  you  not  see  that  no  man's  essential  character  can  be  af 
fected  by  the  fact  that  this  man  or  that  man  votes  with  him? 
Can  any  contamination  arise  from  such  a  circumstance?  Am 
I  responsible  for  the  character  of  a  man  who  votes  my  ticket? 
Can  I  be  made  responsible  when  he  openly  subscribes  to  my 
political  creed,  and  professes  to  have  the  same  political  aims 
with  myself?  And  do  you  not  see  that  if  you  refrain  from 
voting  till  all  who  vote  your  ticket  are  known  to  be  honest 
men,  and  inspired  by  pure  aims,  that  you  could  never  vote 
for  anybody?  Would  not  all  political  action  cease,  if  your 
ideas  are  to  be  accepted  and  put  in  practice?  For  myself,  I 
rejoice  unspeakably  in  the  united  action  of  the  Democrats 
throughout  the  country  this  year,  in  their  readiness  to  stand 
with  us.  I  rejoice  because  it  promises  reconciliation  and 
peace  to  the  nation.  I  rejoice  because  it  delivers  us  from  the 
ugly  trammels  and  wicked  strifes  of  the  past,  and  thus  opens 
the  way  for  the  calm  consideration  and  wise  settlement  of 
those  living  problems  which  for  years  past  have  invoked  the 
judgment  of  the  people. 

But  even  granting  the  truth  of  all  I  have  said,  our  old 
Republican  friends  are  not  satisfied.  Let  me,  therefore,  fol 
low  up  my  appeal  to  them  still  further.  They  say  they  can 
not  support  Horace  Greeley  because  he  is  inconsistent. 
They  say  he  is  a  vacillating  old  man,  who  could  not  safely 
be  trusted  as  President.  They  say  he  is  a  political  weather 
cock,  and  they  copy  this  from  an  English  journal.  I  ask 
you  to  consider  these  objections  for  a  moment.  For  nearly 
a  third  of  a  century  Horace  Greeley  has  been  the  leading 
editor  of  one  of  the  foremost  journals  of  the  world.  For  some 
thirty  years  past  he  has  each  day  written  down  his  opinions 
and  impressions  upon  current  events,  telling  the  people  just 
what  he  thought  at  the  time  as  to  political,  social  and  reform 
atory  questions.  Undoubtedly  he  made  mistakes.  Of  course, 
he  expressed  opinions  which  afterward,  on  fuller  informa- 


1 6  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

tion,  he  reconsidered.  It  would  have  required  the  talents  of 
an  angel  to  write  down  the  truth  in  every  instance  and  upon 
all  subjects.  Of  course,  the  record  of  such  a  man  presents 
some  inconsistencies,  for  the  very  reason  that  he  grew  wiser 
from  year  to  year,  and,  as  an  honest  man,  was  ready  to  con 
fess  his  errors.  But,  I  ask  you,  has  Horace  Greeley  really 
been  inconsistent  and  vacillating  upon  great  and  vital  ques 
tions?  Has  he  not  been  a  firm  and  unflinching  Republican 
ever  since  the  Republican  party  was  formed?  You  say  he  is 
a  political  weather-cock.  I  have  a  right  to  what  the  lawyers 
call  a  bill  of  particulars.  Give  me  the  items  of  his  inconsist 
ency  as  a  Republican  politician  and  journalist.  A  friend  of 
mine  said  to  me,  the  other  day,  "  My  objection  to  Greeley 
is,  that  he  lacks  that  soundness  of  judgment  which  is  abso 
lutely  necessary  in  the  Presidential  office."  I  asked  him  to 
specify  wherein  he  was  wanting  in  soundness  of  judgment, 
but  the  specifications  were  not  given.  He  has  certainly  man 
ifested  a  good  deal  of  "  soundness  of  judgment"  and  execu 
tive  ability  in  establishing  one  of  the  grandest  newspaper 
enterprises  in  the  country.  Undoubtedly  he  is  liable  to  be 
duped  and  deceived,  like  other  men.  No  man  could  fill  the 
Presidential  office  without  being  exposed  to  danger  in  this 
direction.  We  all  know  how  sadly  President  Lincoln  was 
imposed  upon,  through  his  misplaced  confidence,  and  what 
unworthy  characters  gathered  around  Mr.  Chase,  while  Sec 
retary  of  the  Treasury,  and  commanded  his  unhesitating 
friendship.  That  General  Grant  has  been  most  unfortunate 
in  the  men  he  has  drawn  about  him,  and  intrusted  with  re 
sponsible  positions,  is  too  well  known  to  be  questioned.  I 
believe  the  strong  common  sense  of  Horace  Greeley,  unin 
fluenced  by  the  temptation  to  work  for  a  second  term,  and 
guided  by  his  ambition  for  an  honorable  fame,  would  save 
him  from  fatal  mistakes.  It  does  not  look  well,  at  all  events, 
for  the  champions  of  General  Grant,  whose  ugly  record  must 
be  confessed,  to  assail  Horace  Greeley  by  assuming  that  he 
would  imitate  the  bad  example  set  by  their  own  candidate. 
Gentlemen,  I  have  little  respect  for  those  who  raise  the 


LIBERAL   REPUALICANISM.  Ij 

cry  of  inconsistency.  Suppose  I  plead  guilty  for  Horace 
Greeley  ;  what  then?  Is  he  the  only  inconsistent  public  man 
in  our  country?  Can  you  name  a  prominent  statesman  or 
politician  in  the  land  whose  record  is  perfectly  consistent? 
I  can  scarcely  think  of  one,  after  I  have  named  Charles 
Sumner.  Who  of  the  famous  men  of  the  generation  past  can 
be  referred  to  as  examples?  Would  the  list  include  Clay, 
or  Webster,  or  Calhoun,  or  Benton?  Take  the  notable  men 
of  our  own  time.  Take  the  Grant  candidate  for  Vice-Presi- 
dent.  He  is  my  personal  friend,  and  I  honor  him  ;  but  when 
I  first  knew  him,  I  believe  he  was  a  Whig,  afterward  he  be 
came  a  Conscience  Whig,  then  a  Free-soiler,  then  a  Know- 
nothing,  then  a  Republican,  and,  by-and-by,  he  will  become — 
what  we  shall  see.  His  devotion  to  the  Republican  party 
to-day,  and  his  yearning  desire  to  see  it  continued,  are  not 
at  all  consistent  with  his  past  record.  And  when,  in  his 
opinion,  its  mission  shall  have  ended,  he  will  probably  be  as 
little  inclined  to  linger  at  its  funeral  as  he  was  to  cling  to 
former  party  organizations  after  he  had  used  them  as  so 
many  ladders  to  climb  up  higher.  Take  the  case  of  your 
distinguished  Senator.  As  I  have  told  you,  he  began  his 
career  as  a  Democrat ;  he  then  found  his  way  into  the  Re 
publican  party  by  the  light  of  the  dark  lantern.  You  know 
his  record  since.  On  the  finance  question  he  has  favored 
the  greenback  theory  of  Mr.  Pendleton,  and  opposed  it. 
Early  in  the  war  he  was  opposed  to  arming  the  negroes,  and 
to  everything  savoring  of  hostility  to  slavery  ;  bat  afterwards 
became  a  radical  of  radicals.  In  the  summer  of  1865  he  de 
clared,  with  an  oath,  that  negro  suffrage  "must  be  put 
down;"  and  in  the  fall  of  that  year,  as  you  well  remember, 
he  made  his  grand  hegira  into  the  old  Burnt  District,  and 
delivered  his  memorable  Richmond  speech.  In  that  speech 
he  sounded  the  key-note  of  the  Johnsonized  Conservative  Re 
publican  New  Departure,  denouncing  the  doctrines  of  Charles 
Sumner,  the  policy  of  negro  suffrage,  and  the  principles  of 
reconstruction,  as  they  were  subsequently  carried  out  by  the 
Republican  party.  But  very  soon  afterwards,  on  finding  his 

2 


i8 


SELECTED    SPEECHES. 


fatal  political  mistake,  he  became  the  champion  and  eloquent 
defender  of  the  very  principles  he  had  denounced  ;  and  while 
he  and  his  friends  busied  themselves  in  hunting  up  and  con 
signing  to  the  flames  the  large  edition  which  had  been 
printed  of  his  speech  at  Richmond,  our  Democratic  friends, 
in  some  half-dozen  states,  made  it  a  campaign  document, 
and  printed  it  by  the  hundred  thousand.  Such  is  the  record 
of  your  "  great  war  governor,''  who  is  now  the  right-hand 
man  of  this  administration,  and  whom  the  Grant  Republicans 
so  delight  to  honor,  while  charging  Greeley  with  incon 
sistency,  and  pointing  to  him  as  a  political  weather-cock.  I 
could  easily  multiply  these  examples  of  political  inconsistency, 
but  your  own  knowledge  of  our  public  men  will  readily  sug 
gest  them,  and  add  confirmation  to  what  I  have  said. 

But  Greeley,  you  say,  bailed  Jeff.  Davis,  and  therefore 
you  can  not  support  him.  My  friends,  he  did  bail  Jeff.  Davis, 
and  if  you  understand  the  facts  you  must  honor  him  for  the 
act.  If  you  are  ignorant  of  the  facts,  then  your  first  duty  is 
to  ascertain  them.  I  have  found  some  people  who  actually 
believe  that  Horace  Greeley  saved  Davis  from  the  halter. 
They  have  persuaded  themselves  that  Greeley  so  sympa 
thized  with  treason,  and  so  loved  the  arch-traitor,  that  he 
volunteered  his  efforts  to  save  him  from  the  gallows.  Noth 
ing  could  be  further  from  the  truth.  When  Davis  was  bailed 
he  had  been  imprisoned  some  two  years,  although  the  con 
stitution  required  that  he  should  have  a  speedy  trial.  The 
question  was  what  the  government  should  do  with  him.  It 
was  not  possible  to  try  him  by  a  military  court,  for  the  war 
was  over,  and  no  such  tribunal  could  be  resorted  to.  To  try  • 
him  before  a  Virginia  jury  would  certainly  result  in  his  ac 
quittal  of  the  crime  of  which  the  whole  world  knew  him  to 
be  guilty.  To  let  him  rot  in  prison  would  not  only  violate 
the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  constitution,  but  outrage  our  civ 
ilization  and  kindle  the  fires  of  a  fearful  reaction  in  the  South. 
What  was  the  government  to  do  with  the  troublesome  ele 
phant  which  it  had  acquired  by  the  unlucky  capture  of  Davis  ? 
I  am  not  now  talking  about  the  fit  chastisement  of  the  rebel 


LIBERAL    REPUBLICANISM.  19 

chiefs  at  the  end  of  the  war.  1  expressed  my  decided 
opinion  on  that  subject  at  that  time,  and  I  have  nothing  to 
take  back  ;  but  the  question  I  am  now  considering  is,  what 
the  government  ought  to  have  done  with  Davis  two  years 
after  the  war,  and  under  the  circumstances  I  have  stated? 
Gentlemen,  I  submit  that  the  very  wisest  thing  possible  was 
the  very  thing  which  the  government  itself  desired  to  have 
done,  and  that  was  the  bailing  of  Davis.  After  a  conference 
with  leading  and  influential  public  men  of  different  sections 
of  the  country,  this  was  agreed  upon  as  the  way  out  of  the 
dilemma.  But  who  should  go  on  his  bond?  Could  we  take 
Lee,  or  Longstreet,  or  Toombs,  or  some  other  rebels,  who 
had  probably  been  made  insolvent  by  the  war?  If  we  al 
lowed  Davis  to  go  at  large,  must  not  the  loyal  states,  as  well 
as  the  loyal  men  in  the  rebel  states,  be  made  secure  in  the 
forthcoming  of  Davis,  should  his  trial  ever  be  demanded? 
If  we  bailed  Davis,  the  bail,  of  course,  must  be  amply  re 
sponsible  ;  and  it  was  to  this  end  that  Horace  Greeley,  Com 
modore  Vanderbilt,  and  other  wealthy  men  in  the  North, 
signed  their  names  to  the  bail  bond. 

These  are  the  facts,  gentlemen,  and  I  ask  you  to  remem 
ber  them  when  you  tell  us  that  you  "  prefer  the  man  who 
whaled  Jeff'.  Davis  to  the  man  who  bailed  him."  I  ask  you 
to  remember,  too,  that  your  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
approved  the  act  of  Horace  Greeley,  and  that  Gerrit  Smith, 
whom  you  now  love  so  tenderly,  united  with  Greeley  in  the 
act  which  you  denounce.  Remember,  also,  that  this  act  was 
the  natural  and  consistent  expression  of  that  policy  of  univer 
sal  amnesty  which  Greeley  proclaimed  the  moment  the  war 
was  ended  ;  and  that,  although  you  call  him  a  political 
weather-cock,  no  power  was  strong  enough  to  swerve  him 
from  it.  Remember  that  while  he  was  a  candidate  for  a  seat 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  and  could  certainly  have  been 
elected  by  modifying  or  suppressing  his  views,  and  was  so 
earnestly  assured  by  his  friends,  he  said  to  them,  "It  is  of 
small  consequence  that  I  should  be  a  Senator ;  but  it  is  of 
great  consequence  that  the  North  and  the  South  should  be 


2O  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

reunited  in  fraternity  and  good  will,  on  the  basis  of  universal 
amnesty."  And  I  ask  you  to  remember  further,  that  while 
Mr.  Greeley,  in  the  act  of  signing  the  bail-bond  of  Davis, 
and  in  maintaining  his  policy  of  universal  amnesty,  encoun 
tered  a  torrent  of  abuse  such  as  has  rarely  fallen  to  the  lot  of 
any  public  man,  he  never  faltered  in  his  devotion  to  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  truth  ;  and  that  now,  at  last,  all  parties  in 
this  country  have  practically  sanctioned  his  policy,  and  vin 
dicated  his  wisdom. 

But  Greeley,  we  are  told,  was  an  original  secessionist. 
The  charge  is  grossly  untrue.  In  common  with  thousands 
of  good  and  true  men  in  our  country,  he  recoiled  from  the 
dreadful  alternative  of  civil  war.  He  hoped  it  was  possible 
to  avert  it.  He  prayed  that  this  bitter  cup  might  not  be 
pressed  to  the  nation  s  lips.  He  sympathized  with  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  those  earnest  strivings  for  conciliation,  which 
gave  offense  to  many  Republicans  of  a  bolder  type.  He 
believed  the  rebel  states  themselves,  if  a  fair  vote  could  be 
had,  would  condemn  the  policy  of  secession.  If  he  ever 
favored  the  secession  of  these  states,  it  was  upon  conditions 
which  were  impossible,  and  which  he  assented  to  as  the 
means  of  securing  an  important  vantage  ground  to  the  North 
if  the  war  should  become  inevitable.  He  never  favored  se 
cession  at  their  own  option,  and  on  their  own  chosen  con 
ditions.  He  never  admitted  their  right  to  fire  on  the  old  flag, 
and  steal  our  arms  and  munitions  of  war,  aud  thus  establish 
their  independence.  If  1  am  not  mistaken,  his  views  were 
substantially  those  expressed  by  the  Indianapolis  Journal  at 
the  time.  They  were  shared  by  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  people  throughout  the  country.  The  Northern  States 
had  been  educated  in  the  ideas  of  peace.  General  Scott 
himself,  then  at  the  head  of  the  army,  scouted  the  idea  of 
putting  down  the  rebellion  by  war.  He  favored  a  pacification 
on  the  basis  of  Crittenden's  infamous  compromise,  and,  if  that 
failed,  he  was  for  letting  the  "  wayward  sisters  go  in  peace. " 
Mr:  SeVard,  as  Secretary  of  State,  declared  that  none  but  a 
despotic  or  imperial  government  would  seek  to  subjugate 


LIBERAL   REPUBLICANISM.  21 

thoroughly  dissaffected  states.  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  ex 
pressed  the  same  idea  in  his  message  to  Congress  of  July, 
1861.  It  required  time  and  reflection,  and  the  display  of 
desperate  rebel  madness,  to  fire  the  heart  of  the  country 
with  the  spirit  of  war.  It  was  honorable  to  Mr.  Greeley, 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  many  sympathizers  at  the  time,  that 
they  were  so  anxious  to  have  the  nation  lay  hold  of  every 
means  in  its  power  to  save  it  from  the  appalling  calamities  of 
a  bloody  conflict  between  the  two  sections  of  the  Union.  But 
when,  at  last,  this  became  inevitable,  Mr.  Greeley  threw  his 
whole  heart  into  the  loyal  cause  Having  done  so  much  in 
previous  years  through  his  famous  journal  to  create  the  pub 
lic  opinion  which  now  made  the  conflict  irrepressible,  he  felt 
bound  to  spare  no  effort  within  his  power  to  sustain  the  na 
tion  in  its  struggle  with  armed  rebels.  And  I  believe  it  safe 
to  say  that  no  man  in  the  republic  rendered  more  effective 
service,  or  is  better  entitled  to  its  gratitude.  The  truth  is, 
this  charge  of  favoring  secession,  which  is  now  flung  at  Mr. 
Greeley  by  the  supporters  of  General  Grant,  is  as  infamous 
as  it  is  ridiculous  ;  and  the  men  who  have  coined  it,  and  are 
now  striving  to  give  it  currency,  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  the 
baseness  and  indecency  which  can  thus  seek  to  strengthen 
their  cause  by  calumniating  the  character  of  a  man  whose 
whole  life  has  been  so  grandly  devoted  to  his  country, 
and  whose  pen  has  been  "  mightier  than  the  sword  "  in  the 
battle  between  liberty  and  slavery. 

Our  Grant  men  blame  Greeley,  for  his  attempts,  during 
the  war,  to  restore  peace  between  the  two  sections  of  the 
country.  These  attempts  proved  futile,  and  may  have  been 
unwise.  The  lack  of  wisdom,  however,  is  not  apparent, 
while  the  spirit  that  prompted  them  is  to  be  commended. 
The  rebels  professed  a  desire  to  negotiate,  but  it  was  quite 
evident  they  would  agree  to  no  terms  which  the  government 
could  accept.  Mr.  Greeley  and  Mr.  Lincoln  were  well  con 
vinced  of  this,  but  if  the  attempt  at  negotiation  should  reveal 
this  fact,  it  must  strengthen  the  loyal  cause,  and  thus  prepare 
us  for  the  final  struggle.  Mr.  Greeley  is  blamed  for  his 


SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

readiness  to  pay  four  hundred  millions  of  dollars  as  a  condi 
tion  of  emancipation  and  peace.  But  if  his  proposition  had 
been  accepted,  it  would  have  saved  many  thousands  of  lives, 
and  probably  one  thousand  million  dollars,  which  the  fur 
ther  prosecution  of  the  war  cost  us.  Why  blame  Greeley 
for  this  proposition?  And  how  is  it  that  you  Grant  men  do 
not  measure  out  even-handed  justice  in  censuring  our  public 
men  ?  You  remember  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  his  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation,  in  1863,  tQld  the  rebels  that  .if  they  would  lay 
down  their  arms  within  ninety  days,  the  institution  of  slavery 
should  be  spared.  Gentlemen,  if  ever  a  great  and  priceless 
God-send  was  vouchsafed  to  any  people,  it  came  to  us  in 
that  rebel  madness  which  rejected  Mr.  Lincoln's  offer.  I 
express  no  censure  of  this  act,  which,  like  the  other  propo 
sition  referred  to,  was  rejected.  Doubtless  Mr.  Lincoln  did 
what  he  thought  was  the  wisest  and  best  thing  possible  in 
the  trying  circumstances  under  which  he  was  placed.  It  is 
fair  to  give  Mr.  Greeley  the  same  credit ;  but  if  he  must 
be  censured  for  his  act  on  moral  or  political  grounds,  much 
more  should  you  censure  the  act  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  I 
am  sorry  to  say  that  in  this  case,  as  in  so  many  other  in 
stances,  the  champions  of  General  Grant  single  out  Horace 
Greeley  as  the  only  public  man  who  has  gone  astray.  They 
are  hungering  and  thirsting  for  his  mistakes  and  shortcom 
ings.  They  are  pouncing  upon  him  like  beasts  of  prey,  and 
howling  over  his  pretended  political  sins,  while  totally  obliv 
ious  of  the  fact  that  others  have  been  wrong,  and  especially 
that  their  own  party  idols  and  chiefs  can  be  successfully  as 
sailed.  I  am  sorry  to  witness  so  many  manifestations  of  this 
bad  spirit,  so  dishonoring  to  our  politics,  but  my  consolation 
is  that  the  people  love  justice  and  fair-dealing,  and  will,  in 
due  season,  adequately  rebuke  the  crooked  and  insincere 
tactics  of  partisan  demagogues. 

And  now,  in  general  response  to  all  I  have  said,  will  you 
insist  that  General  Grant  nevertheless,  is  your  choice  for 
President,  and  that  one  of  your  reasons  is,  that  he  is  paying 
off  the  national  debt?  You  might  just  as  well  credit  him 


LIBERAL    REPUBLICANISM.  23  , 

with  sending  the  sunshine  and  rain,  and  causing  the  earth  to 
bring  forth  of  her  abundance.  General  Grant's  share  in  the 
work  of  paying  our  debt  consists  in  the  payment  of  his  indi 
vidual  taxes,  just  as  you  pay  yours.  The  reduction  of  the 
debt  at  the  rapid  rate  of  one  hundred  millions  per  annum  is 
due  to  the  energy,  enterprise  and  thrift  of  our  people,  and  is 
accomplished  through  the  machinery  of  the  tax  and  tariff 
laws  passed  by  Congress.  The  honor  belongs  to  the  people  ; 
but  if  you  ascribe  it  to  Grant,  a  still  larger  honor  should  be 
awarded  to  Andrew  Johnson,  under  whose  administration  a 
still  more  rapid  reduction  was  accomplished. 

Do  you  tell  me  that  Grant  should  be  still  further  honored 
because  he  has  been  the  savior  of  the  country?  Undoubt 
edly  he  did  his  part  in  saving  it,  and  did  it  well  ;  and  the 
nation  has  abundantly  honored  and  rewarded  him  for  it. 
But  General  Thomas  did  his  part.  So  did  General  Sherman. 
So  did  scores  of  other  Generals.  But  none  of  our  Generals, 
nor  all  of  them  together,  could  have  saved  the  country  with 
out  the  heroic  courage  and  unselfish  devotion  of  the  common 
soldier.  He,  after  all,  was  the  real  hero  of  the  war.  But 
behind  the  General  and  the  common  soldier  stood  the  great 
people,  from  whose  ranks  our  armies  were  recruited,  who 
furnished  the  government  with  its  supplies,  and  with  the  sin 
ews  of  war,  whose  heroic  patience  and  endurance  never 
failed  in  the  darkest  hour,  and  whose  aggregate  common 
sense  at  last  gave  our  civil  and  military  rulers  a  war  policy 
that  saved  us.  Gentlemen,  the  real  saviors  of  the  nation  are 
the  people  of  the  nation,  and  I  am  not  willing  that  any  man 
or  party  shall  pluck  from  them  the  honor  which  is  theirs.  I 
pity  the  servile  spirit  of  man-worship,  and  the  sickly  craving 
for  personal  government,  which  we  daily  witness  in  the  effort 
to  exalt  and  aggrandize  one  man  at  the  expense  of  the  people. 
Such  despicable  exhibitions  of  latter-day  flunkeyism  are  as 
disgusting  to  all  sensible  and  decent  people  as  they  are  dis 
honorable  to  those  who  profess  to  believe  in  our  popular  in 
stitutions. 

Do  you  tell  me  that  the  Republican  party,  with  General 


24  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

Grant  at  its  head,  is  in  favor  of  abolishing  the  franking  priv 
ilege?  The  action  of  that  party  during  the  entire  term  of  its 
ascendency  in  Congress  belies  its  profession.  Parties,  like 
individuals,  must  be  judged  by  their  acts,  and  if  these  are 
inconsistent  with  their  professions,  the  sin  of  hypocrisy  must 
be  added  to  that  of  faithlessness.  I  have  been  very  familiar 
with  the  temper  and  feeling  of  both  houses  of  Congress  for 
the  past  eleven  years,  and  I  know  that  if  the  party  in  power 
had  desired  to  abolish  this  privilege,  it  would  have  been  done. 
You  know  this  as  well  as  I  do.  And  I  am  equally  sure  there 
is  not  a  man  in  Congress  to-day  who  does  not  openly  or  se 
cretly  laugh  at  the  false  pretense  impudently  put  forth  in  the 
Philadelphia  platform  respecting  this  issue. 

Do  you  plead  that  the  Republican  party  is  the  enemy  of 
land  monopoly,  and  the  champion  of  the  rights  of  settlers? 
The  persistent  effort  in  Congress  for  years  past  to  so  amend 
the  Homestead  Law  as  to  prevent  the  further  sale  of  the 
public  lands  to  non-resident  purchasers  for  speculative  pur 
poses,  has  been  again  and  again  voted  down  by  a  Republican 
Congress.  Indeed,  from  the  very  date  of  the  passage  of  the 
Homestead  Law,  the  policy  of  the  Republican  party  has 
systematically  favored  its  nullification  by  legislation  utterly 
inconsistent  with  its  spirit  and  purpose.  For  the  leaders  of 
the  party  to  parade  their  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  our 
pioneer  settlers  and  landless  poor,  is  to  insult  decency  and 
crown  party  audacity  as  king.  No  honest  Republican  can 
defend  the  land  policy  of  his  party,  because  that  policy  out 
rages  justice,  wages  war  against  the  equal  rights  of  the  peo 
ple,  and  is  a  wanton  conspiracy  against  posterity  itself. 

Do  you  point  me  to  your  resolution  in  favor  of  tariff'  re 
form?  If  interpreted  by  the  action  of  the  Republican  party, 
it  means  that  you  are  in  favor  of  a  tariff'  for  protection,  with 
incidental  revenue.  It  means  that  you  are  in  favor  of  tariff 
monopoly,  and  not  tariff  reform.  And  the  best  proof  of  this 
is  the  tariff  bill  hatched  by  the  last  session  of  Congress,  after 
an  incubation  of  five  or  six  months,  and  which  puts  on  the 
free  list  the  chief  luxuries  of  the  rich,  while  imposing  its 


LIBERAL   REPUBLICANISM.  25 

heavy  burdens  upon  the  necessaries  of  life,  which  bear  hard 
est  upon  the  laboring  poor.  Your  talk  about  adjusting  duties 
so  as  to  secure  remunerative  wages  to  labor,  and  promote  the 
industries,  growth  and  prosperity  of  the  whole  country,  sa 
vors  entirely  too  much  of  the  other  false  pretenses  to  which 
I  have  already  referred. 

Do  you  refer  me  to  the  professed  friendship  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  for  the  soldier?  His  demand  for  an  honest  equal 
ization  of  his  bounties  has  been  denied,  and  the  denial  reit 
erated  by  Congress  during  the  last  seven  or  eight  years.  It 
is  true  that  Congress,  at  its  late  session,  passed  a  sort  of 
land-bounty  bill  ;  but  its  provisions  wrere  so  clumsily  framed 
that  the  General  Land-office  confessed  itself  incapable  of  ex 
ecuting  them,  \vhile  I  believe  that  no  mistake  was  ever  made 
in  any  great  land-grant  through  which  the  corporation  ask 
ing  it  failed  to  get  all,  if  not  more  than  all,  that  was  contem 
plated  by  the  act.  Be  it  remembered,  also,  that  multitudes 
of  our  maimed  soldiers  are  necessarily  incapable  of  tilling 
the  soil,  and  that  \vhat  they  want  is  not  the  common  oppor 
tunity  which  the  homestead-law  opens  to  all,  but  a  substan 
tial  provision  for  themselves  and  their  little  ones  by  wrhich 
they  may  be  enabled  to  live  and  to  enjoy  life. 

Do  you  point  me  to  your  Philadelphia  resolution  on  the 
subject  of  capital  and  labor?  No  man,  without  divine  illum 
ination,  can  tell  what  it  means  ;  but  when  I  interpret  it  in  the 
light  of  your  party  action,  of  your  huge  grants  of  land  to 
raihvay  and  other  corporations,  of  your  legislation  for  the 
rich  in  the  tariff  laws  to  which  I  have  referred,  of  the  organ 
ized  monopolv  in  the  interest  of  capital  which  we  see  in  our 
system  of  national  banks,  and  the  growing  tendency  of  Re 
publican  legislation  in  the  direction  of  aristocracy  and  privi 
lege,  I  can  readily  perceive  in  your  professed  friendship  for 
the  laboring  classes  a  measure  of  insincerity  and  demagog- 
ism  which  can  scarcely  be  paralleled  by  any  other  plank  in 
the  Philadelphia  platform.  Shame  upon  the  false  pretense 
that  can  thus  insult  the  public  intelligence  and  set  all  politi 
cal  decency  at  defiance. 

But,  gentlemen,  I  am  taxing  your  patience  too  long.    Cer- 


26  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

tainly  I  need  not  further  discuss  particular  questions  of  policy 
or  legislative  reform.  These,  I  doubt  not,  will  be  wisely  dealt 
with  if  we  can  first  emancipate  the  people  from  their  thraldom 
to  the  past,  and  from  the  corrupt  and  mercenary  leaders  who 
are  still  bent  upon  controlling  them,  in  the  name  of  radicalism 
and  loyality.  The  great  and  overmastering  want  of  the  coun 
try  to-day  is  peace.  This  is  the  travail  of  the  republic — "  Let 
us  have  peace  !  "  Not  a  hollow  and  hypocritical  peace,  such 
as  this  administration  and  its  leaders  are  seeking  to  give  us, 
by  keeping  alive  the  old  fires  of  hate  and  war,  in  order  to 
their  continued  ascendency,  but  a  real  peace,  which  shall 
bless  and  gladden  the  vvhole  land.  This,  after  all,  is  the  grand 
question  to  be  settled  by  the  national  canvass.  Shall  the  states 
of  the  South  and  the  states  of  the  North,  now  once  more  look 
ing  at  each  other  with  friendly  eyes,  be  really  reconciled  in  a 
common  forgetfulness  of  their  strifes,  and  a  common  purpose 
to  love  each  other?  Shall  their  political  marriage  be  again 
solemnized,  under  the  priesthood  of  our  new  dispensation,  or 
shall  their  strifes  still  prevail,  after  the  cause  of  their  estrange 
ment  has  been  forever  removed?  Shall  we,  at  last,  become 
one  people,  instead  of  two?  Shall  the  nation,  purged  of  the 
guilt  of  slavery,  and  purified  by  trial,  employ  its  time  in  crim 
ination  and  recrimination  over  questions  that  need  nothing 
but  forgetfulness?  This  is  the  question  for  the  country  to 
ponder  to-day.  It  is  always  easy  to  pursue  a  wrong  course. 
It  is  easy  to  yield  to  passion  and  revenge.  It  is  easy  to  resur 
rect  passions  and  resentments  after  they  have  been  buried. 
It  is  easy  to  remind  others  of  their  faults,  and  thus  hinder  the 
healthy  tendency  toward  fraternity  and  good  will.  Ic  is  easy 
for  Republican  politicians  to  repeat  and  reiterate  their  old  war 
speeches,  as  it  would  be  easy  for  me  to  repeat  mine,  which  I 
would  do  if  you  could  set  back  the  clock  of  our  history  and 
place  me  where  I  stood  when  I  spoke.  God  forbid  that  I 
should  utter  a  word  or  breathe  a  whisper  that  could  hinder 
the  approach  of  peace  and  brotherhood  between  the  people 
of  the  North  and  the  people  of  the  South,  when  I  see  the  way 
opening  for  their  advent.  Let  by-gones  be  by-gones,  and  the 
dead  past  bury  its  dead. 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY. 


DELIVERED  AT  ROCKVILLE,  SEPTEMBER  13,   1873, 


[This  speech  was  delivered  in  the  lull  which  followed  the  campaign  of 
1872,  and  deals  with  the  general  subject  of  politics  in  a  perfectly  dispassionate 
and  non-partisan  style.  Whoever  may  read  it  will  notice  how  remarkably  the 
questions  it  discusses  have  since  forced  their  way  to  the  front  and  compelled 
all  parties  to  consider  them.] 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Fellow- Citizens;  The  present  season 
of  unusual  political  quiet  in  Indiana  seems  to  me  remarkably 
favorable  to  calm  judgment  and  an  honest  search  after  the 
truth.  While  party  feeling  has  died  away  among  us  to  an 
unprecedented  extent,  and  the  issues  of  by-gone  strifes  have 
gradually  disappeared,  the  political  developments  of  the  past 
year  have  powerfully  stimulated  earnest  thought  and  inde 
pendent  action  among  the  people.  New  questions  are  now 
to  be  debated,  and  new  dangers  are  to  be  met.  The  dawn 
of  a  new  epoch  in  our  politics,  which  was  becoming  visible 
last  year,  is  now  unmistakable  ;  and  both  the  love  of  country 
and  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  plead  with  the  people  for 
some  wise  and  timely  methods  of  reform.  In  the  light  of 
these  facts,  I  believe  this  is  a  time  to  speak,  rather  than  a 
time  to  be  silent ;  and  I  have,  therefore,  accepted  an  invita 
tion  from  personal  and  political  friends  in  this  section  of  our 
state  to  address  the  people  at  this  point  to-day.  I  have 
chosen  for  my  subject,  The  New  Trials  of  Democracy.  In 
selecting  this  topic  I  assume  that  popular  institutions,  how 
ever  admirable  in  theory  or  beneficent  in  practice,  are  yet 
exposed  to  dangers  and  vicissitudes.  I  take  it  for  granted 
that  democracy  is  inevitably  bound  by  the  laws  of  its  condi- 


28  SELECTED    SPEECHES.  ^ 

tion.  "It  is  not  born  out  of  the  sky,  nor  wrought  in  dreams." 
It  is  necessarily  colored  by  the  atmosphere  in  which  it  lives, 
and  takes  on  the  qualities  with  which  it  is  mingled.  It  is  an 
Opportunity,  quite  as  much  as  a  Power.  While  decidedly 
acting  upon  society,  and  multiplying  the  sources  of  its  own 
life,  it  is  constantly  acted  upon  by  external  forces  which  hin 
der  the  free  play  and  full  sweep  of  its  energy.  It  is  always 
on  probation,  \vaiting  for  its  complete  ascendency  upon  the 
advance  of  knowledge  and  virtue,  the  ministry  of  equal  laws, 
and  the  "eternal  vigilance"  of  the  people.  It  may  fitly  be 
compared  to  the  Christian  life,  in  which  the  very  best  men 
never  rise  to  those  heights  of  goodness  which  lie  beyond  the 
reach  of  temptation.  Mr.  Buckle  argues  that  in  some  coun 
tries  democracy  is  impossible,  owing  to  the  influence  of  soil, 
climate,  food,  and  what  he  calls  "the  peculiar  aspects  of 
nature  ;"  but  even  under  the  most  favored  conditions,  and 
in  the  most  enlightened  communities,  it  is  only  a  grand  ex 
periment,  a  heroic  endeavor  of  the  people,  a  ceaseless  con 
flict  with  ever  re-occurring  dangers,  which  invoke  the  help 
ing  hand  of  every  man  who  is  ready  to  show  his  faith  in  free 
institutions  by  his  works. 

THE  PEOPLE  AND  THE  LAND. 

Without  further  preface  I  proceed  to  notice  some  of  the 
new  trials  of  democracy  in  our  own  country  ;  and  perhaps 
the  most  formidable  of  these  is  the  result  of  false  relations  be 
tween  the  people  and  the  land.  So  intimate  and  vital  are 
these  relations  in  all  countries,  that  in  the  nomenclature  of 
politics  the  words  "people"  and  "land"  are  convertible 
terms.  The  laws  regulating  the  ownership  and  disposition  of 
landed  property  necessarily  shape  the  institutions  of  a  peo 
ple.  Real  democracy  must  have  its  roots  in  the  soil,  because 
the  land  owners  of  every  country  are  its  masters.  A  demo 
cratic  government  which  allows  the  land  to  become  the  patri 
mony  of  the  few  can  not  possibly  be  enduring,  since  liberty 
and  slavery  are  not  more  utterly  repugnant  to  each  other 
than  are  free  institutions  and  the  unrestricted  monopoly  of 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  29 

the  soil.  Such  a  government  is  democratic  in  name  only, 
and  is,  in  fact,  the  most  galling  and  fatal  form  of  aristocratic 
rule.  It  has  justly  been  remarked  that  laws  of  primogeniture 
and  entail  cause  an  aristocracy  to  spring  out  of  the  ground, 
and  affect  the  well-being  of  unborn  generations.  They  make 
the  existence  of  a  true  yeomany  impossible,  and  wage  war 
against  the  normal  life  of  the  family.  They  breed  pauperism 
and  crime,  and  lay  the  many  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the  few. 
It  was  through  the  abolition  or  radical  curtailment  of  these 
laws  by  the  Puritans  that  American  democracy  was  born. 
Not  even  the  germs  of  aristocracy  were  originally  planted  in 
New  England.  Her  political  institutions  were  the  logical 
product  of  her  laws  respecting  landed  property,  which,  by 
favoring  a  great  subdivision  of  the  land,  favored  great  equal 
ity  among  the  people.  This  produced  prosperous  cultivation, 
closely  associated  communities,  free  schools,  a  healthy  public 
opinion,  democracy  in  managing  the  affairs  of  the  church, 
and  that  system  of  local  self-government  which  has  spread 
over  so  many  states,  and  must  Finally  prevail  throughout  the 
world.  English  ideas,  however,  took  root  in  the  states  of  the 
South,  and  the  result  was  the  system  of  entails  and  large 
landed  estates,  fitly  supplemented  by  African  slaverv,  which 
simply  emphasized  the  irrepressible  antagonism,  between  the 
democracy  of  one  section  of  the  Union  and  the  aristocracy  of 
the  other.  The  land  policy  of  New  England  would  have 
made  slavery  impossible,  while  democratic  institutions  would 
have  been  the  common  heritage  of  North  and  South. 

This  vital  mistake  might  have  been  partially  remedied 
after  the  colonies  became  a  nation,  if  a  just  and  comprehen 
sive  national  land  policy  had  then  been  adopted.  But  the 
colonies  emerged  from  the  revolutionary  struggle  burdened 
with  an  immense  debt,  and  our  fathers  knew  of  no  other 
considerable  source  of  payment  than  the  public  lands.  In 
the  disposition  of  these  lands  there  was  but  one  thought,  and 
that  was  revenue.  In  fighting  the  divine  right  of  kings^.  the 
divine  right  of  the  land  monopolist  was  forgotten.  In 
stead  of  laying  the  foundations  of  democratic  equality  in  the 


3O  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

soil  itself,  and  thus  taking  a  bond  of  fate  for  the  welfare  of 
coming  generations,  the  goading  need  of  money  and  the  very 
abundance  of  our  lands  paved  the  way  for  great  monopolies, 
which  have  increased  and  multiplied  ever  since.  The  pur 
chase  of  vast  tracts  by  individuals  and  companies  was  not 
only  allowed,  but  encouraged  by  the  government.  The  pol 
icy  of  disposing  of  the  public  domain  at  low  or  nominal  rates, 
to  actual  settlers  only,  and  in  limited  quantities,  was  not  then 
dreamed  of;  and  so  potent  was  the  influence  of  those  feudal 
ideas  which  had  been  transplanted  from  the  Old  World,  that 
the  enactment  of  our  homestead  law  did  not  become  possible 
till  seventy-five  years  after  the  establishment  of  the  American 
land  system.  But  this  law  did  not  emancipate  the  public 
domain.  It  was  a  sign  of  promise,  but  it  did  not  fulfill  the 
nation's  desire.  Non-resident  speculators  are  still  at  liberty 
to  purchase  great  tracts  of  the  public  domain,  and  hold  them 
indefinitely  for  a  rise  in  price,  which  is  at  war  with  the  whole 
spirit  and  policy  of  the  homestead  law,  and  as  flagrantly  un 
just  as  it  is  financially  stupid.  Our  land  grant  system  has 
already  surrendered  to  railroad  corporations  a  territorial  em 
pire  of  over  two  hundred  millions  of  acres.  Our  Indian 
treaty  policy  has  robbed  poor  settlers  of  great  bodies  of 
choice  lands,  and  handed  them  over  to  monopolists  and 
thieves.  Our  legislation  on  the  subject  of  military  land  boun 
ties,  while  nearly  profitless  to  the  soldiers,  has  been  a  national 
•disaster,  beneficial  only  to  speculators  and  monopolists.  The 
acts  of  Congress  on  the  subject  of  swamp  lands  and  college 
and  Indian  scrip  have  been  equally  vicious  and  indefensible. 
The  rights  of  settlers  under  the  homestead  and  preemp 
tion  laws  have  been  seriously  threatened  by  department  rul 
ings  in  the  interest  of  railway  companies,  while  the  growing 
power  of  land  monopoly  has  found  a  powerful  ally  in  the  state 
and  federal  courts.  The  policy  of  the  government  and  the 
spirit  of  the  times  are  alike  hostile  to  those  ideas  on  which 
alone  a  true  democracy  can  stand.  Under  the  vicious  legis 
lation  to  which  I  have  referred  only  one  person  in  fifteen, 
outside  of  the  towns  and  cities,  is  the  owner  of  a  home  in 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  3! 

the  land  states  of  the  South.  In  California  quite  a  number 
of  men  own  hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  each,  and  in 
crossing  the  lands  of  one  of  these  you  are  obliged  to  travel 
seventy -five  miles.  The  curse  of  land  monopoly  in  the  states 
of  the  Northwest,  caused  by  the  cruel  commerce  in  land 
which  the  government  has  encouraged,  has  been  an  irrepar 
able  blight  and  blast  to  their  prosperity.  Great  estates  are 
everywhere  tending  to  swallow  up  the  smaller  ones,  and  to 
produce  a  constantly  multiplying  and  crouching  tenantry. 
Even  in  New  England,  owing  greatly  to  her  tariff  policy,' 
non-resident  proprietors  are  becoming  common  in  large  dis 
tricts,  while  the  general  education  of  farm  laborers  is  below 
that  of  the  factory  operative,  and  the  condition  of  agriculture 
itself  is  that  of  rapid  decay.  These  facts  are  as  significant 
as  they  are  alarming.  They  foreshadow  the  approach  of  a 
deadly  danger  to  our  institutions,  and  the  new  and  fearful 
trial  which  certainly  awaits  them. 

We  have  here,  it  is  true,  no  crushing  system  of  landlord 
ism,  founded  on  despotic  laws  and  traditions,  but  through  the 
land  policy  of  the  nation  and  the  machinery  of  great  corpo 
rations  we  have  inaugurated  a  system  of  feudalism  as  com 
pletely  at  war  with  the  principles  of  free  government  as  that 
which  scourges  England  to-day.  I  believe  that  nothing  is 
more  logically  certain  than  that  this  system  must  be  con 
fronted  and  overthrown, or  the  epitaph  of  American  democracy 
must  be  written.  This  is  the  simple  but  pregnant  alternative  ; 
and  the  statesmanship  that  would  postpone  or  evade  it  is 
criminally  recreant  to  the  most  imperative  demands  of  the 
hour.  Men  do  not  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles. 
In  politics,  as  in  morals,  we  shall  reap  as  we  sow.  Land 
monopoly  has  preyed  upon  every  age  of  the  world.  It  has 
sapped  the  life  of  every  free  government  of  the  past,  and  is 
to-day  the  stronghold  of  every  despotism  on  earth.  History 
ever  repeats  itself,  and  the  believers  in  popular  institutions 
are  therefore  utterly  without  excuse  if  they  allow  its  solemn 
and  reiterated  warnings  to  go  unheeded. 


SELECTED    SPEECHES 


THE    GROWTH    AND    DOMINATION    OF    CITIES. 

We  are  threatened  with  another  serious  trial  of  our  demo 
cratic  institutions  in  the  growth  and  domination  of  cities.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  great  cities  are  in  themselves  an  evil. 
They  are  the  necessary  outgrowth  of  our  civilization.  They 
supply  the  producer  with  a  home  market.  As  great  intel 
lectual  and  commercial  centers  they  are  the  natural  hand 
maids  of  social  and  economic  progress.  They  ought  to  be 
the  natural  allies  of  democracy  ;  but  I  believe  they  are  pre 
paring  for  it  an  ordeal  which  will  tax  all  the  resources  of  the 
people  to  save  it.  The  danger  to  which  I  allude  is  two-fold. 
In  the  first  place,  the  government  of  great  cities  by  demo 
cratic  methods  is  an  unsolved  problem.  Thus  far,  at  least, 
we  are  obliged  to  confess  that  the  chief  cities  of  our  own 
country  have  proved  ungovernable.  The  forms  of  democracy 
have  been  laid  hold  of  by  its  enemies,  who  have  trampled  its 
substance  under  foot.  In  our  Northern  states,  outside  the 
great  cities,  popular  government  has  been  a  success.  Life 
and  property,  as  a  rule,  are  secure.  Education  is  widely 
diffused,  and  society  makes  a  healthy  and  natural  progress. 
There  is  a  general  equality  of  condition  among  the  people, 
which  holds  in  check  the  spirit  of  aristocracy  and  caste. 
The  laws  are  respected,  and  the  voice  of  the  majority  is  hon 
estly  registered  and  cheerfully  accepted.  But  in  our  great 
cities  all  this  is  changed.  In  the  city  of  New  York  official 
thieves  have  robbed  the  treasury.  Offices  are  bought  and 
sold  like  merchandise.  Legislatures  are  auctioned  oft' to  the 
highest  bidder.  Courts  are  bribed  bv  villains  who  escape 
justice  through  the  power  of  their  money.  Great  masses  of 
men,  native  and  foreign,  cursed  by  ignorance,  poverty  and 
drink,  become  the  miserable  tools  of  demagogues  and  gam 
blers,  while  opposing  political  parties  are  equally  corrupt, 
and  decent  men  are  tempted  to  give  up  public  affairs  in  dis 
gust.  The  voice  of  the  church,  if  heard  at  all,  is  unheeded. 
No  man's  life,  property  or  reputation  is  safe,  and  nothing 
is  sincerely  believed  in  by  the  men  who  rule  the  hour  but  the 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  33 

beauty  and  blessedness  of  wealth.  This  picture  of  democ 
racy,  as  practically  illustrated  in  New  York,  and  in  several 
other  chief  cities  of  the  Union,  shows  how  powerless  it  is  in 
these  great  centers  of  population  and  wealth,  and  how  well- 
founded  seems  to  have  been  the  apprehension  of  De  Tocque- 
ville,  uttered  more  than  forty  years  ago,  that  our  system  of 
government  must  find  its  ruin  in  the  growth  of  our  cities  and 
the  character  of  their  population.  But  this  failure  of  democ 
racy  is  not  the  fact  which  is  most  alarming.  We  not  only 
fail  to  govern  the  cities,  but  the  cities  govern  the  country. 
In  several  of  the  states  they  hold  the  balance  of  power. 
They  hold  it,  and  wield  it,  in  the  nation.  The  same  igno 
rant  and  brutalized  horde  which  demagogues  and  thieves  em 
ploy  in  the  government  of  the  cities,  is  made  to  turn  the  scale 
in  state  and  national  contests.  Here  is  our  greatest  peril. 
And  this  frightful  evil  is  constantly  increasing.  The  domi 
nation  of  our  cities,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  every  day  gaining 
ground.  Through  the  concentration  of  capital  and  its  result 
ing  oligarchy  of  wealth,  the  "  dangerous  classes  "  are  all  the 
while  on  the  increase,  while  the  growth  of  our  cities  far  out 
strips  that  of  the  nation.  In  the  United  States,  as  in  Europe, 
men  are  running  away  from  rural  pursuits,  and  coveting  the 
excitements  of  town  life.  The  professions  are  more  and  more 
crowded,  while  increasing  multitudes  are  seeking  a  liveli 
hood  in  some  form  of  traffic.  The  character  of  our  civiliza 
tion  and  the  whole  current  of  modern  life  favor  the  growth  of 
these  evils.  We  see  this  illustrated  in  our  great  railway  and 
banking  corporations,  which  so  powerfully  tend  to  aggregate 
capital  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  and  to  draw  the  many  under 
their  control.  We  see  it  in  the  growth  of  great  manufactur 
ing  establishments,  called  into  life  by  labor-saving  machin 
ery,  which  capital  can  so  easily  command,  and  cause  the  de 
pendent  masses  to  gravitate  around  new  centers.  We  see  it 
in  the  monopolization  of  lands  and  the  absorption  of  small 
estates,  decimating  the  farming  population,  and  portending 
a  centralization  in  agriculture  through  the  combination  of 
capital  and  machinery,  such  as  we  have  seen  in  manufac- 
3 


34  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

tures  and  commerce.  We  see  it  in  the  growth  of  habits  of 
luxury  and  extravagance,  and  the  decline  of  those  domestic 
virtues,  without  which  the  family  and  the  home  lose  their 
sacredness  and  the  state  its  best  support.  We  see  it  in  the 
alarming  increase  of  taxes  throughout  the  country,  which 
are  chiefly  saddled  on  the  poor,  and  especially  in  our  tariff 
laws,  exempting  from  duty  the  chief  luxuries  of  the  rich,  and 
heavily  taxing  the  articles  of  prime  necessity  to  the  producer, 
such  as  iron  and  steel,  and  thus  at  once  taxing  his  transport 
ation,  and  his  plow,  his  reaper,  and  everything  else  into 
which  these  metals  enter,  while  the  price  of  his  produce  is 
as  low  as  it  was  before  the  late  war.  We  see  it,  in  short,  in 
the  unmistakable  purpose  of  the  government  to  lend  itself  to 
the  service  of  capital,  and  to  show  the  world  the  spectacle  of 
a  great  nation  founded  on  the  aristocracy  of  wealth,  instead 
of  resolutely  maintaining  the  principles  of  real  democracy 
and  fostering  the  republican  virtue  of  the  people. 

"Ill  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey, 
Where  wealth  accumulates  and  men  decay." 

Hitherto  the  hope  of  our  country  has  been  in  our  rural 
districts.  In  peace  and  in  war  we  have  leaned  upon  our 
yeomanry,  and  they  have  never  failed  us.  Brave,  patriotic, 
and  incorruptible,  they  have  been  our  strength  and  our  pride. 
Will  they  be  able  to  save  us  in  the  trial  of  democracy  in 
volved  in  the  unhealthy  growth  of  our  cities,  and  the  increas 
ing  distaste  for  rural  pursuits?  Can  the  country  stand  the 
present  drain  upon  the  farming  population,  and  the  growing- 
ascendency  of  the  bad  elements  which  rule  our  large  towns? 
Rome  perished  in  the  destruction  of  her  peasantry  and  the 
concentration  of  her  population  in  the  capital.  Great  estates 
destroyed  the  family  life  of  the  people,  and  while  the  culti 
vators  of  the  soil  became  slaves,  luxury  and  vice  preyed 
upon  the  empire.  The  same  fate  awaits  us  if  we  follow  in 
the  same  path.  I  believe  our  deliverance  is  largely  in  the 
hands  of  the  cultivators  of  the  soil.  I  rejoice  to  find  them  so 
apprehending  the  dangers  which  threaten  them  that  they  are 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  35 

earnestly  setting  about  the  work  of  self-defense.  While  cap 
italists  are  combining  for  their  own  aggrandizement,  and 
mechanics  and  workingmen  are  organizing  in  various  forms 
to  resist  their  usurpation,  our  farmers  are  finding  that  their 
policy  of  isolation  is  a  mistake.  They  see  that  organization 
is  both  a  duty  and  a  necessity.  As  a  matter  of  self-protec 
tion,  they  are  adopting  well  considered  methods  of  industrial 
co-operation.  In  order  to  break  up  the  monotony  of  rural 
life,  and  beautify  its  pursuits,  they  are  inviting  their  wives 
and  daughters  to  join  them  on  the  platform  of  perfect  equal 
ity,  and  thus  rebuking  the  senseless  aristocracy  of  sex,  and 
opening  the  way  for  the  enfranchisement  of  woman.  The 
social  element  and  spirit  of  fraternity  enkindled  by  such 
methods  must  naturally  lead  to  concerted  political  action 
against  whatever  grievances  may  invite  it,  and  thus,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  the  exodus  from  the  country  to  the  city  will  be 
checked,  the  thinned  ranks  of  agriculture  in  some  degree 
recruited,  and  the  cities  themselves  redeemed  in  the  act  of 
saving  the  country.  The  prophecy  of  this  is  pretty  clearly 
seen  in  the  various  farmers'  movements  which  have  recently 
sprung  up  throughout  the  United  States.  The  agriculturists 
of  our  country  comprise  a  majority  of  its  population,  and  if 
perfectly  united  could,  therefore,  outvote  all  other  classes 
combined.  Their  business  feeds  the  human  race,  and  is  the 
natural  employment  of  man.  It  was  enjoined  upon  him  by 
his  Maker,  and  from  it  both  manufactures  and  commerce 
draw  their  life.  Every  interest  of  society  must  necessarily 
suffer  when  the  great  underlying  industry  of  the  farmer  lan 
guishes.  One  of  the  most  significant  and  cheering  signs  of 
the  times,  therefore,  and  the  harbinger,  as  I  believe,  of  the 
political  as  well  as  the  industrial  regeneration  of  our  land,  is 
the  spirit  of  union  which  has  so  suddenly  and  so  marvelously 
inspired  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  and  which,  I  trust,  will  finally 
draw  into  a  common  brotherhood  the  workingmen  of  all 
other  occupations.  Undoubtedly  it  will  adopt  some  unwise 
methods.  It  may  now  and  then  strike  out  wildly  and  blindly 
in  seeking  just  ends.  It  will  not  be  exempt  from  the  mis- 


36  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

chiefs  of  self-seeking,  demagogism  and  bad  leadership. 
Leaping  into  life  all  at  once  among  men  who  have  known 
so  little  of  organization,  it  will  sometimes  hinder  the  cause 
it  would  promote  ;  but  time,  experience,  and  an  honest  en 
deavor,  will  at  last  enable  a  powerful  body  of  united  and 
sober  men  to  accomplish  their  deliberate  purpose. 

THE    POWER    OF    GREAT    CORPORATIONS. 

A  more  immediately  threatening  danger  to  oar  institutions 
is  the  growing  power  of  great  corporations.  Democracy 
needs  the  constant  support  of  equal  laws.  It  demands  com 
mon  opportunities  for  the  people.  It  can  tolerate  no  privil 
eged  classes,  and  no  legislative  favoritism  of  any  sort.  If  cor 
porations  are  created,  they  should  be  a  clear  public  necessity 
or  convenience,  and  never  cease  to  be  the  servants  of  the  peo 
ple.  Without  these  conditions  they  have  no  right  to  exist. 
The  question  of  railroad  transportation  affords  the  best  illus 
tration  of  what  I  wish  to  say  on  this  subject.  Political  econ 
omy  teaches  that  good  roads  are  equivalent  to  good  tools. 
They  are  a  part  of  the  economy  of  labor.  They  are  regarded 
as  a  diminution  of  the  cost  of  all  things  sent  to  market  by 
them.  But  our  railways,  though  the  mere  instruments  of 
commerce  and  agents  of  the  people,  and  often  richly  en 
dowed  by  the  government,  have  begun  to  play  the  role  of 
master.  Instead  of  helping  the  people  they  are  becoming  a 
hindrance,  and  in  some  instances  a  positive  public  grievance. 
The  great  railway  corporations  have  grown  so  powerful  that 
they  can  manipulate  both  State  Legislatures  and  Congress. 
The  power  of  associated  capital  embodied  in  them,  and  exer 
cised  in  the  way  of  exorbitant  freight  charges,  is  rendering 
agriculture  an  unprofitable  business.  In  some  regions  of  the 
West  it  does  not  pay  to  plant  a  crop.  While  millions  of 
bushels  of  corn  and  wheat  are  rotting  in  the  fields,  thousands 
of  people  in  the  East  are  suffering  for  bread.  Thousands  of 
bushels  of  grain  are  being  burned  for  fuel,  while  charities 
are  organized  to  feed  the  starving  poor  of  New  York  and 
other  cities.  Of  the  immense  crops  of  corn  in  Iowa,  we  are 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  37 

told  by  the  best  authority  that  it  takes  five  bushels  to  get  one 
to  the  seaboard.  Owing  to  the  growing  spirit  of  railway 
rapacity,  and  the  increasing  demand  for  large  profits  caused 
by  the  policy  of  watering  stocks,  matters  are  rapidly  growing 
worse.  In  portions  of  Illinois  the  farmers  have  actually  gone 
back  to  the  primeval  habit  of  hauling  their  grain  to  market 
on  wagons,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  can  save  money 
by  the  operation.  The  railroad  rates  are  not  only  exorbitant, 
but  as  unjust  and  unfair  as  a  perverse  ingenuity  can  con 
trive  them,  in  their  discriminations  as  to  distance  and  the 
articles  shipped. 

The  exact  remedy  for  these  frightful  evils  has  not  yet 
been  discovered.  Undoubtedly  Congress  has  the  right  to 
control  the  charges  on  inter-state  lines  of  railroads,  under 
the  constitutional  power  to  regulate  commerce  between  the 
states  ;  but  Congress  itself  has  become  the  servant  of  the 
great  railway  power.  We  see  this  shamefully  illustrated  in 
the  Credit  Mobilier  developments,  and  in  the  ugly  fact  that 
their  pretended  investigation  was  simply  a  whitewashing 
pastime.  It  is  true,  also,  that  the  states  have  the  same 
power  as  to  the  roads  within  their  borders,  but  thus  far  their 
legislation  has  been  a  confessed  failure,  for  the  reason  that 
their  law-makers,  too,  have  been  the  stipendiaries  of  these 
monopolies,  while  in  some  instances  our  state  and  federal 
courts  have  succumbed  to  their  purposes.  Some  relief  might 
be  found  in  the  thorough  reform  of  our  tariff  abuse,  cutting 
down  the  cost  of  iron  and  other  fabrics  used  in  railway  ma 
chinery  and  equipment.  The  people  are  beginning  to  see 
this,  and  will  necessarily  make  tariff  reform  a  battle-cry  in 
their  conflict  with  the  railroads  ;  but  this  reform  would  be  a 
mitigation,  rather  than  a  cure,  of  the  mischief.  As  a  great 
practical  question,  demanding  immediate  public  attention,  it 
is  by  far  the  most  serious  one  now  before  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  It  completely  overshadows  the  ordinary  top 
ics  of  political  discussion,  because  it  involves  the  right  of  the 
people  to  live.  The  railroad  power  of  our  country  wields  a 
consolidated  capital  of  four  thousand  millions  of  dollars. 


38  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

The  network  of  its  ramifications  reaches  throughout  the  con 
tinent,  and  as  against  the  public  is  as  completely  a  unit  as 
was  the  slave  power  of  the  South.  We  have  now  about  sev 
enty  thousand  miles  of  railroads  in  the  United  States,  to 
which  we  are  adding  five  or  six  thousand  per  year.  Their 
annual  earnings  are  more  than  half  a  million  dollars,  and 
they  have  in  their  employ  an  army  of  two  hundred  thousand 
men,  including  the  ablest  legal  talent  in  the  nation,  and 
drawing  into  their  support  every  influence  that  great  wealth 
can  command.  The  privileged  classes  of  aristocratic  Europe 
are  unknown  here  ;  but  we  have  in  their  stead  these  great 
corporations,  armed  with  equal  or  greater  power,  and  threat 
ening  the  complete  subjugation  of  the  people.  It  is  the  one- 
man  power  in  a  new  and  most  alarming  form.  We  have  no 
dukes,  lords  or  barons,  and  in  theory  can  guard  against  po 
litical  abuses  by  frequent  changes  of  our  public  servants  ; 
but  we  have  our  great  railroad  kings,  who  control  the  makers 
and  expounders  of  the  law,  and  are  practically  endowed  with 
life  offices  and  powers  of  hereditary  succession.  Is  not  this 
as  fatal  to  democracy  as  would  be  the  life  tenure  of  the  office 
of  President,  with  power  to  name  his  successor?  If  the  Eu 
ropean  system  of  government  is  abominable,  is  not  our  sys 
tem  of  railway  rule  equally  so?  The  question  thus  forced 
upon  us  is  that  of  democracy  on  the  one  hand,  backed  by 
forty  millions  of  people,  and  struggling  for  its  very  existence, 
and  commercial  feudalism  on  the  other,  dominated  by  great 
corporate  monopolies  which  own  the  wealth  of  kingdoms, 
and  will  be  content  with  nothing  less  than  imperial  power 
over  the  government  and  people.  I  sincerely  regret  that 
this  grave  issue  has  become  inevitable.  I  certainly  cherish 
no  hostility  to  railroads.  Undoubtedly  they  help  develop 
the  country.  They  often  create  the  towns  which  they  con 
nect.  They  extend  civilization  and  all  its  appliances.  They 
are  of  inestimable  value  to  the  country,  under  a  just  admin 
istration  of  their  affairs,  and  while  content  to  act  as  the  ser 
vants  of  the  public.  But  they  are  built  by  the  people's  re 
sources  and  labor,  for  the  people's  advantage,  and  the  people 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  39 

must  resist  their  attempted  usurpation  at  whatever  cost.  How 
they  are  to  do  this  the  future  alone  can  fully  reveal  ;  but  I 
am  sure  they  will  do  it,  because  they  are  sovereign  on  their 
own  soil  and  over  their  own  affairs.  I  believe  they  under 
stand  their  rights,  and  in  the  end  will  find  the  means  of 
maintaining  them.  They  can  not  long  fail  to  see  that  the 
very  life  of  our  government  is  at  stake  in  this  controversy. 
They  will  see  that  it  is  one  thing  to  establish  great  lines  of 
intercommunication,  foster  great  commercial  enterprises  and 
amass  great  wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  and  quite  another 
thing,  while  reasonably  favoring  the  healthy  development  of 
commerce  and  the  activity  of  capital,  to  so  shape  the  admin 
istration  of  affairs  as  to  maintain,  in  their  full  vigor,  the  vital 
principles  of  democracy.  My  hope  is  in  the  people  ;  and  if, 
in  a  crisis  like  the  present,  they  should  rally  under  old  polit 
ical  watchwords,  and  invoke  the  party  machinery  through 
which  the  evils  now  complained  of  have  been  brought  to 
their  doors,  they  will  deserve  the  humiliation  and  defeat 
which  their  conduct  will  certainly  invite. 

In  this  reference  to  the  conflict  between  our  democratic 
institutions  and  the  power  of  great  corporations,  I  must  not 
omit  the  subject  of  our  national  banks.  They  number  more 
than  two  thousand,  and  represent  an  aggregate  capital  of 
nearly  five  hundred  millions  of  money.  If  they  were  neces 
sary  during  the  war  as  a  means  of  enlisting  capital  on  the 
side  of  the  government,  that  necessity  has  long  since  ceased. 
But  they  still  exist,  and  their  number  is  increasing.  Nor  is 
bank  extension  governed  solely  by  the  business  wants  of  the 
people.  To  a  great  extent  it  depends  on  what  the  politicians 
call  "  influence.''  That  this  system  of  national  banks  might 
readily  be  made  a  tremendous  political  power,  no  sane  man 
will  deny.  That  this  power  was  almost  perfectly  united  on 
the  side  of  the  administration  in  the  national  canvass  of  last 
year,  is  equally  undeniable.  In  the  very  nature  of  things  it 
must  become  a  political  engine  ;  and -in  comparison  with  this 
great  oligarchy  of  capitalists  the  old  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  which  justly  alarmed  the  people,  was  insignificant  if 


40  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

not  contemptible.  And  there  is,  I  repeat,  no  valid  excuse 
for  its  existence.  The  banks  are  supported  by  the  govern 
ment  at  the  bidding  of  capital,  and  capital  demands  it,  be 
cause  they  pay  their  stockholders  from  fifteen  to  thirty-odd 
per  cent,  per  annum  for  the  little  clerical  work  involved  in 
running  their  machinery,  while  these  profits  must  come  out 
of  the  pockets  of  the  people,  and  necessarily  aggrandize  the 
rich  and  heap  exactions  upon  the  poor.  Why  should  the 
government  make  itself  substantially  responsible  for  national 
bank  notes,  and  hand  them  over  to  corporations  to  be  loaned 
as  money,  without  exacting  anything  for  their  use?  Why 
not  issue  greenbacks  at  once,  and  retire  the  government 
bonds  held  by  the  banks,  amounting  to  over  three  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  and  thus  save  to  the  nation  twenty  mil 
lions  in  interest?  But  I  can  not  here  enlarge  upon  this  topic, 
and  I  only  repeat  what  I  have  said  on  other  occasions,  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States  have  the  right  to  a  sound 
national  currency  without  the  costly  machinery  of  these 
banks,  which  are  a  pure  monopoly  in  the  interest  of  Capital, 
demanded  by  no  public  necessity,  and  rendering  no  service 
to  the  country  that  can  justify  the  expense  which  they  occa 
sion  or  the  profits  they  receive.  A  national  currency  of  uni 
form  value  throughout  the  Union  is  exceedingly  desirable  ; 
but  if  that  currency  must  be  irredeemable  paper,  let  the  gov 
ernment  issue  it  directly,  and  thus  rid  the  people  of  the  bur 
den  of  supporting  a  great  moneyed  power  for  the  enrichment 
of  a  privileged  few,  and  at  war  with  every  principle  of  dem 
ocratic  equality. 

THE    LABOR    PROBLEM. 

The  practical  success  of  our  democratic  experiment  is 
seriously  menaced  by  the  labor  problem.  This  subject  is 
involved  in  what  I  have  said  of  the  monopolization  of  lands, 
the  growth  of  cities,  and  the  power  of  corporations  ;  but  it 
demands  a  distinct  consideration.  A  right  adjustment  of  the 
relations  of  capital  and  labor  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the 
permanent  success  of  popular  institutions.  We  have  seen 
this  .illustrated  in  the  old  slave  system  of  the  South,  which 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  4! 

was  simply  an  extreme  form  of  the  tyranny  of  capital.  It 
was  the  logical  climax  of  that  system  of  political  philosophy 
which  makes  the  protection  of  property  the  chief  end  of  gov 
ernment.  Democracy  teaches  that  the  laborer  is  worthy  of 
his  hire,  and  that  man  is  paramount  to  wealth.  Whether 
the  domination  of  capital  takes  the  form  of  chattel  slavery, 
or  serfdom,  or  that  practical  ownership  of  the  laborer  which 
our  system  of  modern  industrial  skill  has  inaugurated,  can 
make  no  sort  of  difference  in  principle,  since  in  all  such  cases 
the  sacredness  of  humanity  is  invaded,  and  democracy,  in 
the  same  degree,  renounced.  The  great  practical  difficulty 
is  that  the  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  working  peo 
ple  does  not  keep  pace  with  the  increase  of  the  wealth  which 
they  produce,  and  its  constant  accumulation  in  the  hands  of 
the  few.  While  the  forms  of  aristocracy  and  privilege  have 
been  driven  from  our  political  system,  they  have  reappeared 
in  the  industrial.  Our  great  manufacturing  establishments 
are  so  many  great  centers  of  aristocratic  power.  The  cost 
of  labor-saving  machinery,  which  the  wealthy  alone  can  af 
ford,  causes  great  mills  to  spring  up  which  do  the  work  that 
before  was  done  by  the  handicraftsman.  It  is  true  that  the 
cost  of  production  is  lessened  by  the  extent  of  the  establish 
ment,  the  amount  of  capital  and  credit  employed,  and  the 
division  and  subdivision  of  labor.  It  is  likewise  true  that  a 
better  article  is  manufactured,  and  that  the  mind  of  the  mas 
ter  is  invigorated  and  enlarged  by  the  training  involved  in 
the  supervision  of  such  an  establishment.  But  the  laborer  is 
sacrificed.  He  becomes  the  perfect  master  of  the  little  task 
allotted  to  him,  but  dwarfed  in  everything  else.  "In  pro 
portion  as  the  workman  improves  the  man  is  degraded."  In 
the  manufacture  of  a  pair  of  boots  there  are  more  than  a 
dozen  distinct  processes,  supervised  by  as  many  hands.  It 
takes  sixteen  persons  to  make  a  pin,  and  each  must  become 
more  and  more  a  machine  the  longer  he  pursues  his  business. 
"  Hitherto,"  says  John  Stuart  Mill,  "it  is  questionable  if  all 
the  mechanical  inventions  vet  made  have  lightened  the  day's 
toil  of  any  human  being.  They  have  enabled  a  greater  pop- 


42  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

ulation  to  live  the  same  life  of  drudgery  and  imprisonment, 
and  an  increased  number  of  manufacturers  and  others  to 
make  fortunes.  They  have  increased  the  comforts  of  the 
middle  classes.  But  they  have  not  begun  to  effect  those 
great  changes  in  human  destiny  which  it  is  in  their  nature 
and  in  their  futurity  to  accomplish."  They  have  achieved 
signal  material  results,  but  as  yet  they  have  not  proved  the 
handmaids  of  human  welfare.  On  the  contrary,  they  have 
plunged  the  laboring  classes  of  all  countries  into  new  dan 
gers,  which  invoke  new  safeguards  for  their  protection. 
They  have  created  a  new  trial  for  democratic  institutions, 
and  thus  pointed  the  way  to  new  fields  of  political  action  in 
the  interest  of  multitudes,  who  will  need  the  strong  hand  of 
law  in  their  struggle  against  new  and  formidable  forces. 

The  abolition  of  the  small  industries  which  once  flourished 
and  the  substitution  of  the  factory  system,  carried  on  by  great 
capital  and  the  vast  power  of  machinery,  have  founded  a  new 
era  in  industrial  economy,  to  be  followed  by  a  new  era  in  leg 
islation.  It  is  estimated  that  the  steam  engine  is  now  doing 
the  work  which  would  employ  the  whole  population  of  the 
globe  without  it.  Improved  machinery  is  revolutionizing  the 
business  world.  The  innumerable  contrivances  for  econo 
mizing  labor  now  in  use,  while  they  greatly  facilitate  produc 
tion,  naturally  tend  to  the  concentration  of  capital,  and  thus  to 
render  the  laborer  more  and  more  dependent,  while  the  cap 
italist  is  enabled  to  amass  increasing  wealth.  This  law  of 
concentration  is  to-day  in  full  blast,  pointing  to  the  still 
further  degradation  and  helplessness  of  the  masses,  and  the 
more  complete  domination  of  the  few.  Can  American  democ 
racy  stand  so  severe  a  trial  of  its  very  life?  Is  there  no  rem 
edy?  We  are  often  told  that  this  ugly  conflict  between  the 
power  of  wealth  and  the  rights  of  humanity  will  settle  itself. 
Pretended  political  economists  and  great  party  leaders  as 
sure  us  that  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  will  solve  the 
whole  problem,  and  that  government  has  nothing  to  do  with 
it.  This  is  as  shallow  as  it  is  heartless.  "Two  great  dis 
coveries,"  says  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  "  have  been  made  in 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  43 

the  science  of  government :  the  one  is  the  immense  advan 
tage  of  abolishing  restrictions  upon  trade  ;  the  other  is  the 
absolute  necessity  of  imposing  restrictions  upon  labor."  The 
law  of  supply  and  demand  works  very  well  where  the  par 
ties  stand  on  an  equal  footing  ;  but  where  one  party,  from 
whatever  cause,  is  so  circumstanced  that  he  holds  the  other 
completely  in  his  power,  the  law  is  a  law  of  death  to  the  lat 
ter.  The  author  I  have  just  quoted  illustrates  this  by  refer 
ence  to  the  workings  of  the  English  factory  system.  He 
shows  that  the  great  mill-owners  compelled  children  from 
seven  to  ten  years  old  to  work  twelve  hours  per  day,  in  dens 
of  dreariness  and  filth,  shut  out  from  God's  sunlight  and  air, 
and  treated  like  brutes,  while  men  were  worked  from  twelve 
to  twenty  hours.  The  English  people  finally  saw  that  the  law 
of  supply  and  demand  sacrificed  humanity  itself  on  the  altar 
of  mammon.  They  saw  that  it  made  cotton  king,  as  it  did 
in  our  Southern  States,  and  its  dehumanizing  effects  were  at 
length  checked  by  an  act  of  Parliament  fixing  a  limit  to  the 
hours  of  toil.  The  sad  truth  is  that  capital,  under  the  stimu 
lus  of  modern  society,  is  utterly  deaf  to  the  appeals  both  of 
justice  and  mercy.  It  cares  for  nothing  but  its  own  increase. 
It  has  been  said  with  as  much  truth  as  force  that  the  love 
of  gain  overrides  even  the  love  of  life,  and  silences  even  the 
fear  of  death.  There  is  too  much  truth  in  the  saying  of  one 
of  our  foremost  writers  and  thinkers,  that  "  the  mere  men  of 
wealth,  the  bankers  and  brokers,  are  those  who  exert  the 
worst  influence  upon  the  state  ;  their  maxim  is,  let  the  state 
take  care  of  the  rich,  and  the  rich  of  the  poor,  and  not  let 
the  state  take  care  of  the  weak,  for  the  strong  it  need  not." 
Non-intervention,  we  are  told,  is  the  gospel  to  be  preached 
to  the  workingman  when  he  asks  fair  play  at  the  hands  of 
the  government ;  and  yet  the  government  has  always  inter 
vened  against  him,  and  does  to-day.  This  is  true  in  all 
•countries.  Our  laws  of  property  were  originally  founded  in 
conquest  and  violence,  and  still  bear  some  of  the  marks  of 
their  beginning.  Instead  of  taking  pains  to  temper  the  ine 
qualities  which  exist  in  the  conditions  of  men,  they  have 


44  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

taken  pains  to  aggravate  them.  Instead  of  favoring  the 
diffusion  of  wealth  they  have  constantly  favored  its  concen 
tration.  Instead  of  taking  care  of  the  weak  they  have  all  the 
time  given  their  help  to  the  strong.  All  this,  as  I  have 
shown,  is  illustrated  in  our  legislation  respecting  the  public 
lands,  in  our  banking  and  financial  system,  in  the  monstrous 
power  of  great  corporations,  in  the  frightful  monopolies  in 
the  interest  of  favored  classes  which  have  grown  up  under 
our  tariff  laws,  and  in  the  despotic  power  of  great  manufac 
turing  establishments  over  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  the  poor. 
And  yet  we  are  gravely  told,  in  the  face  of  facts  like  these, 
that  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  will  right  their  wrongs  ! 
Their  present  condition  of  helplessness  is  the  result  of  a  sys 
tematic  and  long-continued  course  of  legislation  dictated  by- 
capital  ;  but  instead  of  undoing  this  legislation,  and  turning 
the  current  at  last  in  favor  of  the  working  classes,  the  con 
venient  makeshift  of  supply  and  demand  is  appealed  to, 
which  is  exactly  what  capital  wants  and  all  it  needs.  I  do- 
not  condemn  this  principle,  but  only  its  misapplication.  I 
would  accept  it  in  the  adjustment  of  our  tariff,  and  in  the  ex 
change  of  all  articles  which  are  properly  commodities.  I 
would  not  deal  with  labor  as  merchandise,  but  as  capital, 
endowed  with  the  sacred  right  to  have  its  human  needs  at 
tended  to.  I  would  treat  the  labor  market  as  different  from 
every  other,  since  the  seller  of  a  commodity  has  the  option 
to  sell  or  not,  while  the  capital  of  the  workingman  is  life, 
and  he  must  sell  it  or  perish.  I  would  have  government  rec 
ognize  the  principle  that  "  the  man  who  has  labor  to  sell  has; 
as  many  rights  as  the  man  who  has  it  to  buy."  To  refer 
him  for  relief  to  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  when  capital 
has  already  glutted  the  market  and  holds  him  by  the  throat, 
is  like  commending  the  lamb  to  the  jaws  of  the  wolf.  Pre 
cisely  how  the  despotism  of  capital  is  to  be  overthrown,  and 
the  grievances  of  the  working  classes  redressed.  I  do  not 
pretend  to  decide.  I  only  know  that  this  is  the  grand  prob 
lem  of  our  coming  statesmanship,  and  that  it  must  be  solved, 
if  democracy  is  to  be  carried  safely  through  the  trials  I  have 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  45 

mentioned.  In  this  work  the  laboring  classes  must  them- 
.selves  take  the  lead,  and  this,  I  rejoice  to  see,  they  are  likely 
to  do.  They  are  coming  to  the  front.  Their  power  was  sig 
nally  felt  in  the  late  victory  of  the  people  in  California. 
Their  general  discontent  with  their  lot  is  a  good  augury. 
"Their  numerous  organizations  are  signs  of  promise.  They 
are  coming  into  closer  relations  in  all  civilized  countries,  and 
reaching  a  better  understanding  of  their  needs.  They  are 
very  sure  to  make  many  mistakes,  but  these  will  be  school 
masters,  teaching  them  a  better  way.  Through  the  princi 
ple  of  co-operation,  and  by  intelligent  combinations  among 
themselves  to  resist  the  never-ceasing  combinations  of  capi 
talists,  they  will  be  able  to  do  much  for  their  own  redemp 
tion,  but  their  appeal,  at  last,  must  be  to  politics.  Legisla 
tion  has  placed  them  where  they  are,  and  this  legislation 
must  sooner  or  later  be  reversed.  Capital  has  too  long 
shaped  our  laws  and  ruled  our  politics  with  an  eye  single  to 
its  own  greed,  and  it  should  now  cease  to  be  the  master  and 
accept  its  place  as  the  servant  of  the  people.  This  is  at  once 
the  impelling  demand  of  labor  and  the  supreme  need  of  de 
mocracy. 

FEDERAL    USURPATION. 

A  fearful  trial  awaits  our  system  of  government  in  the 
growing  tendency  towards  federal  usurpation  and  the  cen 
tralization  of  power.  During  the  late  civil  war  the  national 
government  was  compelled  to  deal  with  a  strong  hand.  A 
thorough  schooling  in  the  use  of  power  seemed  to  be  its  only 
alternative.  Theories  of  strict  construction  found  little  favor 
when  the  life  of  the  nation  was  menaced  in  the  name  of  State 
Rights.  The  people  looked  for  their  salvation  only  in  the 
vigorous  exercise  of  power  by  the  central  government,  and 
cared  far  more  about  the  end  to  be  obtained  than  the  means 
of  its  accomplishment.  The  natural  effect  of  this  military 
training  was  to  familiarize  the  people  with  military  ideas  and 
habits,  and  to  attach  them  to  loose  and  indefensible  opinions 
respecting  the  relative  powers  of  the  general  and  state  gov 
ernments.  At  the  same  time,  and  just  as  naturally,  these 


46  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

mischiefs  of  war  crept  into  the  civil  administration  after  the 
war  was  ended,  largely  coloring  the  views  of  the  leading 
public  men  who  had  most  zealously  sustained  the  govern 
ment  in  the  great  conflict,  and  producing  a  final  harvest  of 
maladministration  and  misrule  which  the  country  has  had  to 
reap  during  the  past  four  years.  This  was  inevitable. 
DeTocqueville  asserts  that  war  "  must  invariably  and  im 
measurably  increase  the  powers  of  civil  government,"  and 
that  "  if  it  lead  not  to  despotism  by  sudden  violence,  it  pre 
pares  men  for  it  more  gently  by  their  habits."  These  un 
avoidable  mischiefs  were  considerably  aggravated  by  a  re 
markable  popular  fallacy,  which  still  extensively  prevails. 
The  effect  of  the  war  was  mistaken  for  its  cause.  The  rebel 
lion  was  charged  upon  a  particular  theory  of  State  Rights, 
whereas  its  real  cause  was  African  slavery,  and  the  pretended 
right  of  secession  was  only  a  pretext.  Devotion  to  this  insti 
tution  was  the  overmastering  sentiment  of  the  people  of  the 
South,  and  while  at  one  time  they  manifested  this  devotion 
by  setting  up  their  pet  dogma  of  secession  in  its  support,  at 
another  they  were  equally  ready  to  strike  at  the  very  citadel 
of  States  Rights  by  a  policy  of  monstrous  federal  aggression. 
The  right  of  the  states  to  secede  at  their  own  pleasure  was 
not  more  indefensible  than  the  federal  authority  assumed  in 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  the  Fugitive  Slave  act  of  1850. 
The  cotton  states  did  not  secede  on  account  of  the  tyranny 
of  the  national  government,  but  because  of  their  inability 
any  longer  to  rule  it  in  the  interest  of  slavery.  The  simple 
truth  is,  that  in  the  hands  of  the  old  slave  masters  the  consti 
tution  was  made  to  dip  towards  centralization  or  State  Rights, 
exactly  in  the  degree  it  promised  help  to  the  claims  of  the 
slave  power.  These  facts  are  perfectly  evident,  and  must,  I 
am  sure,  enter  into  the  verdict  of  history.  But  the  peo 
ple,  as  a  rule,  judged  otherwise,  and  their  judgment  neces 
sarily  exercised  a  shaping  influence  over  the  action  of  the 
government.  In  insisting  that  it  was  the  heresy  of  State 
Rights  which  caused  the  war,  they  believed  it  was  not  only 
necessary  that  that  heresy  should  be  crushed,  but  that  in  do- 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  47 

ing  it  the  central  power  should  be  sustained  in  its  most  lati- 
tudinarian  pretensions.  The  whole  policy  of  the  government 
was  thus  swerved  towards  centralization,  and  with  such  an 
impulse  that  it  still  continues.  The  constitution  expressly 
declares  that  "The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  states, 
are  reserved  by  it  to  the  states  respectively,  or  to  the  peo 
ple  ;"  but  the  theory  on  which  General  Grant  conducts  his 
administration  is  that  all  powers  not  conferred  on  the  states 
by  the  constitution  are  reserved  to  the  United  States,  thus 
completely  overturning  the  doctrines  of  the  fathers,  and  set 
ting  at  defiance  the  express  words  of  the  constitution  itself. 
This  is  now  the  political  creed  of  the  men  who  sit  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  President.  And  he  not  only  tramples 
down  the  principle  of  local  self-government,  but  sets  up  his 
own  will  as  law,  even  against  the  authority  of  Congress. 

In  the  San  Domingo  affair  we  have  seen  him  deliberately 
usurp  the  war-making  power  which  is  vested  in  Congress  by 
the  constitution.  On  the  pretense  of  helping  the  farmers  in 
"moving  the  crops,"  we  have  seen  him  assume  powers 
which  no  despot  would  dare  exercise,  in  issuing  millions  of 
currency  without  any  warrant  of  law,  and  on  his  own  indi 
vidual  caprice.  We  have  seen  him  appointing  to  civil  places 
about  him  men  in  the  military  service,  in  violation  of  an  ex 
press  statute  which  he  is  sworn  to  execute.  We  have  seen 
him  grant  a  leave  of  absence  to  General  Sickles  from  his 
mission  at  Madrid,  to  aid  him  in  an  effort  to  gain  control  of 
the  Erie  Railway  for  his  own  private  advantage,  and  issuing 
a  ridiculous  order  authorizing  the  inspection  of  the  books  of 
the  company,  which  his  own  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was 
obliged  to  revoke.  In  disregard  of  law,  and  in  violation  of 
the  constitution  and  his  oath  of  office,  we  have  seen  him 
quartering  federal  soldiers  on  the  Cherokee  neutral  lands  in 
Kansas  to  protect  a  railroad  corporation  in  driving  from  their 
homes  hundreds  of  settlers  who  claimed  the  lands  occupied 
by  them  in  good  faith  under  the  preemption  laws.  We  have 
seen  him  standing  by  a  reckless  and  corrupt  federal  judge 


48  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

in  Louisiana,  and  using  him  in  crushing  out  the  lawful  gov 
ernment  of  that  state  in  order  that  a  gang  of  graceless  dema 
gogues  and  conspirators  may  set  up  a  pretended  state  gov 
ernment,  which  even  his  own  leading  friends  and  most  zeal 
ous  partisans  confess  to  be  a  cheat  and  a  sham.  These  are 
a  few  examples  only,  selected  from  many,  showing  how  the 
President  carries  the  imperial  and  military  spirit  into  his 
high  office,  and  sets  aside  the  laws  which  are  as  binding 
upon  him  as  upon  any  other  citizen,  while  the  example  of  his 
disobedience  is  pre-eminently  mischievous.  The  same  dis 
regard  of  law — of  its  spirit,  if  not  of  its  letter — is  shown  in  his 
gross  misuse  of  the  power  of  pardon.  Since  his  late  elec 
tion,  I  believe  the  first  subject  of  his  tender  mercy  was  the 
Philadelphia  repeater  and  ballot-box  stuffer  who  was  right 
eously  sentenced  for  a  term  of  years  to  the  state  prison, 
but  promptly  pardoned  out  of  it.  A  defaulting  paymas 
ter  and  gambler  who  stole  from  the  treasury  some  four 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  dollars,  and  was  sentenced 
to  a  service  of  ten  years  in  the  penitentiary,  is  the  next 
favorite  of  the  Executive.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  some 
pardoned  forgers  come  next,  while  his  rescue  from  the 
gallows  of  the  murderer  O'Brien  is  an  utter  mockery  of  crim 
inal  justice,  and  an  atrocious  tampering  with  murder  itself. 
In  granting  a  pardon  without  cause,  or  on  insufficient 
grounds,  the  President  violates  the  oath  which  solemnly 
binds  him  to  "take  care  that  the  laws  are  faithfully  exe 
cuted,"  and  becomes  himself  an  offender  against  society  by 
interfering  with  the  operations  of  law  in  the  interest  of  its 
violators,  instead  of  enforcing  its  mandates.  If  our  govern 
ment  is  one  of  law,  and  not  of  force,  and  if  the  well-being  of 
society  can  only  be  maintained  by  steadfastly  upholding  the 
Anglo-Saxon  principle  of  the  sacredness  of  law,  then  the 
time  has  come  for  the  people,  the  fountain  of  law,  to  make 
their  voices  heard  by  the  Executive.  Nor  has  Congress  es 
caped  the  centralizing  influences  to  which  I  have  referred. 
Instead  of  rebuking,  it  has  approved,  the  conduct  of  the 
President.  It  has  been  at  all  times  his  ready  and  faithful 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY. 


49 


ally.  The  authority  conferred  on  him  to  suspend  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  at  his  own  pleasure,  armed  him  with  the  powers 
of  an  autocrat.  It  was  a  plain  violation  of  the  constitution, 
since  neither  "invasion"  nor  "  rebellion"  justified  it,  and  no 
better  plea  could  be  made  in  its  support  than  that  the  end 
justified  the  means.  The  enforcemenc  acts  of  Congress  em 
body  provisions  at  war  with  the  very  principle  of  municipal 
government,  and  which  can  only  be  defended  on  the  tyrant's 
plea  that  the  central  power  can  administer  the  affairs  of  a 
locality  better  than  the  people  can  do  it  themselves.  The 
same  spirit  has  occasionally  cropped  out  in  the  judicial  de 
partment  of  the  government.  It  uniformly  leans  to  the  side 
of  power.  In  controversies  between  the  citizen  and  the  gov 
ernment,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  for  many 
years  past  has  unquestionably  favored  the  strong  against  the 
weak,  and  has  thus  shown  itself  the  watchful  guardian  of  the 
government,  instead  of  administering  impartial  justice. 

This  centralizing  tendency,  independent  of  the  particular 
causes  to  which  I  have  referred,  seems  to  be  a  marked  fea 
ture  of  the  age.  According  to  the  high  authority  last  quoted, 
it  constitutes  the  chief  danger  of  every  people  in  Europe, 
and  is,  at  the  same  time,  the  special  danger  of  our  demo 
cratic  institutions.  They  had  their  birth  and  first  trial  in  the 
town  meeting,  the  township,  the  county  and  the  state.  With 
out  this  schooling  in  local  self-government,  the  development 
of  a  nation  would  have  been  impossible.  The  people  must 
be  trained  to  freedom  in  small  concerns  before  they  can  be 
trusted  with  great  ones.  "The  end  of  good  government," 
says  DeTocqueville,  "is  to  insure  the  welfare  of  a  people, 
and  not  merely  to  establish  order  in  the  midst  of  its  misery." 
He  shows  that  the  very  principle  of  equality  works  in  favor 
of  centralization,  since  the  love  of  equality  is  stronger  than 
the  love  of  liberty,  and  the  general  hatred  of  privileged 
classes  finds  satisfaction  in  the  strength  of  a  common  gov 
ernment  under  which  the  rights  of  all  are  equal.  Democracy 
has  failed  in  France  because  it  has  discarded  provincial  gov 
ernment,  trusting  in  the  dogma  of  equality,  without  the  sup- 

4 


5O  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

port  of  democratic  institutions  in  detail.  The  French  people 
have  lost  sight  of  the  danger  of  a  centralized  tyranny,  in  the 
desire  "for  an  equal  chance  to  everybody  of  tyrannizing." 
American  democracy  may  fall  into  the  same  fatal  mistake, 
and  has  abundant  reason  to  remember  its  old  maxim,  that 
power  is  ever  stealing  from  the  many  to  the  few.  Decentral 
ization,  inspired  by  slavery,  struck  at  the  nation's  life  ;  but 
it  lies  buried  in  the  grave  of  treason.  The  real  danger 
which  now  confronts  us  is  the  insidious  approach  of  imperial 
power,  the  blight  and  paralysis  of  paternal  government. 
This  is  not  only  evident  in  the  light  of  what  I  have  said,  but 
is  still  further  illustrated  in  the  efforts  of  the  government  to 
secure  the  control  of  the  telegraph,  in  stupendous  projects  of 
internal  improvement  which  it  evidently  favors,  in  its  dis 
graceful  interference  with  state  politics,  in  the  late  nefarious 
attempt,  undoubtedly  inspired  in  Washington,  to  crush  out 
the  freedom  of  the  press,  and  in  meretricious  schemes  of  ter 
ritorial  annexation  which,  if  consummated,  would  bring  new 
perils  to  our  institutions,  and  mould  them  into  still  closer 
resemblance  to  those  of  European  despotisms. 

THE    DECLINE    OF    POLITICAL    MORALITY. 

The  last  trial  of  democracy  which  I  shall  notice  is  the 
rapid  decline  of  political  morality  throughout  the  country. 
This  is  the  most  alarming  evil  of  the  times,  because  it  under 
lies  and  aggravates  every  other.  Political  corruption  is  a 
great  canker  at  the  heart  of  the  republic.  It  is  the  dry  rot 
which  threatens  to  undermine  the  whole  fabric  of  our  gov 
ernment.  In  the  sphere  of  politics  the  divine  command, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  is  rapidly  becoming  obsolete  ;  and  it 
is  inevitable  that  this  political  absolution  from  moral  obliga 
tions  must  seriously  infect  the  whole  community.  If  a  public 
man  may  steal,  it  necessarilv  weakens  the  standard  of  integ 
rity  by  which  men  regulate  their  affairs  in  private  life.  The 
lapse  from  honesty  of  a  trusted  politician  is  a  public  misfor 
tune,  because  it  becomes  a  conspicuous  and  mischievous  ex 
ample.  One  public  rascal,  as  has  been  well  remarked,  be- 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  5  I 

comes  the  father  of  a  multitude  of  private  ones.  If  a  member 
of  Congress,  on  the  plea  that  he  is  insufficiently  paid,  is  justi 
fied  in  stealing  five  thousand  dollars,  any  private  rogue,  under 
similar  temptations,  may  do  likewise.  If  men  in  office  may 
prize  their  own  interest  above  that  of  the  public,  why  may  not 
every  man  steal  from  his  neighbor?  The  old  ethical  writers 
went  further,  and  insisted  that  every  moral  rule  is  magnified 
a  hundred  fold  in  relation  to  the  public.  This  is  a  sound 
principle,  and  should  be  thoroughly  instilled  into  the  minds 
of  young  and  old.  Cheating  the  state  should  be  regarded  as 
next  to  blasphemy,  because  government  is  a  divine  ordi 
nance,  and  because  the  consequences  of  such  cheating  are 
wholesale  and  widespread.  Stealing  from  the  state  is  steal 
ing  from  the  poor  whose  toil  produces  the  wealth  of  the  state. 
It  is  stealing  from  the  resources  by  which  the  people  combine 
to  procure  the  blessings  of  good  government.  It  has  been 
branded  as  worse  than  robbing  widows  and  orphans,  because 
it  breeds  general  corruption  and  misgovernment,  and  thus 
multiplies  widows  and  orphans.  Stealing  from  the  state  by 
the  guardians  appointed  to  watch  over  her  interest,  is  like 
robbing  a  blind  man,  whose  helplessness  adds  a  special  igno 
miny  to  the  deed. 

That  principles  so  elementary  and  obvious  should  be  fla 
grantly  set  aside  by  men  high  in  official  position,  and  some 
times  winked  at  by  the  people,  is  as  dishonoring  to  our  poli 
tics  as  it  is  shameful  to  our  virtue.  The  evils  of  political 
ambition  are  bad  enough,  but  they  are  trifles  light  as  air 
in  comparison  with  that  inordinate  greed  of  clutch  which 
now  pollutes  the  very  fountains  of  political  action.  It  was 
the  pursuit  of  power  for  the  sake  of  plunder  that  destroyed 
the  French  Empire  ;  and  the  same  malign  spirit  may  work 
out  like  results  in  our  own  country.  Offices  are  now  sought 
as  the  chosen  means  of  amassing  wealth.  Men  are  nomi 
nally  elected  bv  the  people  to  take  care  of  their  interests, 
while  in  fact  they  are  the  hired  men  of  corporations  and  cap 
italists,  whose  money  manipulates  the  machinery  of  politics. 
Judges  are  bribed,  and  state  legislatures  are  bought  and 


52 


SELECTED    SPEECHES. 


sold.  Jay  Gould  says  under  oath,  "  I  needed  the  legislatures 
of  four  states,  and  in  order  to  acquire  them  I  created  the 
legislatures  with  my  money.  I  found  that  this  is  the  cheap 
est  way."  It  is  no  secret  that  through  the  power  of  money 
drunken  libertines  are  sometimes  installed  in  high  places, 
and  that  men  are  made  Governors  and  United  States  Sen 
ators  who  ought  to  be  in  the  penitentiary.  The  traffic  in 
human  flesh  still  goes  on,  but  white  men  are  now  the  chief 
victims.  Popular  elections  are  carried  by  wholesale  bribery, 
while  the  convicted  ringleaders  in  grand  schemes  of  ballot 
stuffing  are  allowed  to  go  unpunished.  Political  magnates 
and  reputed  "Christian  statesmen"  are  persuaded  to  invest 
their  money  and  their  influence  where  they  "  will  do  the  most 
good"  to  a  great  railroad  corporation  in  its  organized  rob 
bery  of  the  treasury,  while  both  Houses  of  Congress  and  the 
President  of  the  United  States  join  hands  in  a  salary  theft, 
which  makes  the  average  rogues  of  society  comparatively 
respectable. 

The  civil  service  of  the  government,  which  is  vaunted  by 
some  of  its  modest  champions  as  the  "best  on  the  planet," 
is  so  disgusting  a  system  of  official  huckstering  and  political 
prostitution  that  nothing  can  possibly  match  it  but  the  un 
blushing  duplicity  and  demagogism  of  the  administration 
in  pretending  to  favor^its  reform.  Of  course,  this  fountain 
of  corruption,  breaking  out  in  high  places,  must  find  its  level, 
overflowing  the  county  and  the  township,  and  poisoning  the 
moral  as  well  as  the  political  life  of  the  people.  Whether 
this  evil  originates  in  the  laxity  of  moral  training  in  the  fam 
ily,  or  in  some  radical  defect  in  our  system  of  education,  or 
in  the  recreancy  of  the  church  to  her  high  mission  as  a  moral 
instructor  and  guide,  or  in  all  these  causes,  it  presents  a  pro 
blem  which  every  true  man  and  woman  should  earnestly 
ponder.  Its  .successful  solution  involves  the  salvation  of  the 
land.  No  reform  is  possible  in  any  direction  if  we  can  not 
stem  the  black  tide  of  political  corruption  which  threatens  to 
lay  waste  the  republic.  In  meeting  the  great  dangers  I  have 
mentioned  we  shall  fail  hopelessly  if  we  can  not  inspire  in  the 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  53 

people,  and  especially  in  the  coming  generation,  the  love  of 
rectitude,  and  resture  the  maxims  of  common  honesty  to  their 
rightful  sway.  The  grand  need  of  our  time  is  a  general 
resurrection  of  conscience.  Legislatures  are  purchased,  be 
cause  the  moral  sense  of  the  people  permits  knaves  and  tra 
ders  to  represent  them.  Congress  is  controlled  by  the  rail 
ways,  because  the  people  fail  to  choose  incorruptible  men  to 
stand  in  the  places  of  great  temptation.  Courts  are  bribed 
and  seats  in  Congress  are  bought,  because  the  general 
mammon  worship  of  the  times  fails  to  see  in  these  acts  their 
real  turpitude,  or  their  treason  to  democracy.  Cities  are 
governed  by  the  mob,  and  the  ballot  ruthlessly  profaned,  be 
cause  decent  men  retreat  from  politics  in  despair,  and  thus 
become  themselves  a  mob,  by  disowning  the  government 
which  demands  of  them  political  duties  as  the  price  of  protect 
ing  their  rights.  The  word  "politics"  is  synonymous  with 
plunder,  because  the  people  heap  honors  upon  men  who  abjure 
every  principle  of  morality  in  public  as  well  as  private  life,  and 
are  by  nature  incapable  of  any  higher  aim  than  political  suc 
cess.  And  this  fearful  treachery  to  virtue  does  not  stand  alone. 
It  finds  its  strong  allies  in  widespread  popular  ignorance, which 
is  itself  a  great  national  danger,  and  in  the  vice  of  intemper 
ance,  which  lends  itself  to  the  service  of  every  evil  element 
in  society.  Nothing  less  than  the  power  of  indwelling  moral 
principle,  and  the  most  devoted  and  patient  labors  of  the 
preacher,  the  schoolmaster,  and  the  patriot,  can  rescue  our 
country  from  this  appalling  assemblage  of  perils. 

I  have  thus  approached  the  conclusion  of  what  I  desired 
to  say  respecting  the  new  trials  of  American  democracy.  I 
have  referred  to  the  false  relations  between  the  people  and 
the  land,  as  illustrated  in  the  growth  of  great  estates  and  the 
resulting  inequality  of  the  people  ;  to  the  domination  of  great 
cities,  and  its  antagonism  to  popular  institutions  and  the 
prosperity  of  the  rural  districts  ;  to  the  dangerous  power  of 
great  corporations  over  the  national  and  state  governments 
and  the  rights  of  the  people  ;  to  the  concentration  of  capital 
in  alliance  with  labor-saving  machinery,  and  its  remorseless 


54  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

power  over  the  working  classes  ;  to  the  centralization  of  po 
litical  power,  keeping  step  to  the  march  of  great  industrial 
and  social  forces,  and  helping  them  in  their  evil  direction  ; 
and  to  the  shocking  decay  of  political  morality  now  every 
where  visible,  and  which  is  partly  the  cause,  and  partly  the 
effect,  of  the  evils  I  have  mentioned.  These  are  some  of  the 
dangers  which  cast  their  baleful  shadow  over  the  future, 
and  summon  the  people  to  the  work  of  reform.  In  pointing 
to  these  dangers  and  emphasizing  their  magnitude,  I  have 
taken  the  first  step  toward  their  removal,  since  men  are  not 
willing  to  wage  war  against  an  evil  till  they  are  convinced  of 
its  existence.  I  can  not  here  enter  into  the  discussion  of  par 
ticular  remedies  or  methods  of  action  which  the  new  trials  of 
democracy  may  demand  ;  but  one  preliminary  duty  will  be 
found  absolutely  necessary,  and  that  is  organization.  This  is 
now  the  watchword  of  progress  throughout  the  world.  Those 
who  see  a  great  and  threatening  evil  must  combine  against  it. 
Those  who  think  and  feel  alike  respecting  the  dangers  I  have 
set  forth  must  find  each  other  out  and  stand  together.  New 
political  occasions  demand  new  agencies  to  meet  them.  I 
earnestly  hope  that  the  people  of  this  country  have  by  this 
time  discovered  that  a  political  party  is  not  a  deity  to  be 
worshiped,  nor  a  master  to  be  served,  but  simply  a  means 
to  an  end.  It  is  a  political  make-shift.  It  is  only  a  tempo 
rary  contrivance,  born  of  some  new  exigency,  which  men 
lay  hold  of  in  order  to  accomplish  a  cherished  purpose,  and 
when  that  purpose  is  attained  it  becomes  as  worthless  as  the 
scaffolding  about  an  edifice  after  it  has  been  finished.  I  hope 
the  people  have  also  learned  that  a  party,  once  corrupt, 
whether  religious  or  political,  has  lost  the  power  to  reform 
itself,  and  that  a  long  lease  of  power  breeds  corruption  in 
any  party,  and  compels  the  people,  in  self-defense,  to  disown 
it.  They  must  see  how  such  a  party  reduces  the  manipula 
tion  of  conventions  and  caucuses  to  a  fine  art,  in  which  the 
people  have  no  share,  save  as  victims,  and  that  it  converts 
our  national  politics  into  a  great  national  industry,  with  sub 
ordinate  bureaus  of  lying,  cheating  and  stealing,  all  directed 
by  a  few  party  potentates,  under  whose  inspiring  genius  the 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  55 

general  welfare  is  made  entirely  subservient  to  their  selfish 
ambition. 

If  I  am  right  in  these  views,  the  reformation  of  existing 
abuses  must  begin  in  the  rebellion  of  the  people  against  the 
party  tyranny  of  the  times.  Their  emancipation  from 
their  old  political  masters  must  precede  the  overthrow  of  the 
evils  which  confront  us,  and  which  have  grown  to  their  full 
stature  under  the  nurture  of  the  great  organizations  which  to 
day  contend  for  the  mastery,  and  have  alternately  ruled  the 
country  in  the  past.  Instead  of  watching  over  the  interests 
of  the  people,  they  have  themselves  been  the  ready  instru 
ments  of  those  grand  schemes  of  jobbery  and  corruption 
which  have  so  long  afflicted  the  republic,  and  at  last  clutched 
at  its  life.  They  have  not  only  accomplished  their  mission 
and  outlived  their  usefulness,  but  they  are  organized  obstruc 
tions  to  the  public  welfare,  and  quite  as  potent  for  evil  as 
they  ever  were  for  good.  Their  machinery  has  been  so  long 
prostituted  to  base  ends  that  it  has  become  incapable  of  serv 
ing  any  other.  Their  discipline  has  degenerated  into  a  wan 
ton  tyranny  over  individual  judgment  and  conscience,  and 
an  unmixed  curse  to  the  country.  One  of  them  struggles  to 
prolong  its  rule  after  the  death  and  burial  of  its  conscience, 
and  while  shamelessly  wallowing  in  the  mire  of  its  damning 
apostacy  ;  and  the  other  gasps  for  life  with  equal  despera 
tion,  after  forfeiting  its  right  to  live  by  its  unhallowed  service 
of  negro  slavery,  and  writing  its  own  epitaph  last  year  in  the 
nomination  and  support  of  Horace  Greeley  on  the  Cincinnati 
platform.  They  present  the  wretched  spectacle  of  one  fac 
tion  struggling  to  keep  the  other  out  of  power,  and  the  other 
struggling  to  get  in,  while  roguery  and  charlatanism  rule 
them  both.  Each  holds  the  other  in  its  orbit,  and  revolves 
round  a  common  center  of  antagonism,  which  is  its  life. 
Like  the  two  great  parties  of  twenty  years-ago,  they  are  sub 
stantially  agreed  as  to  their  declared  principles  and  policy, 
while  the  spoils  alone  divide  those  who  are  brethren  in  heart. 
They  rival  each  other  in  the  alacrity  with  which  they  engage 
in  schemes  of  pelf  and  plunder,  and  the  refreshing  audacity 
with  which  they  violate  their  political  professions.  Each 


56  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

justly  charges  the  other  with  venality  and  corruption,  and 
each  pleads  the  existence  of  the  other  as  the  excuse  for  its 
own.  Neither  of  them  could  survive  if  the  other  should  per 
ish,  and  either  of  them  would  mourn  the  death  of  the  other, 
since  it  wrould  inevitably  liberate  the  people  from  party 
thraldom  and  usher  in  a  new  dispensation  akin  to  that  which 
at  first  followed  the  disruption  of  the  old  Whig  party,  and 
finally  buried  the  Democratic  organization  in  irretrievable 
dishonor.  One  of  them  impudently  makes  its  strut  before 
the  nation  as  "the  party  of  great  moral  ideas,"  while  num 
bering  among  its  chief  apostles  and  recognized  leaders  such 
characters  as  Simon  Cameron,  Oliver  P.  Morton,  Benjamin 
F.  Butler,  Matt  H.  Carpenter,  Powell  Clayton,  Thomas 
Murphy  and  Brother-in-law  Casey  ;  and  the  other  is  obliged 
to  confess  itself  the  political  father  of  these  anointed  patriots, 
that  it  taughtthem  their  first  lessons  in  modern  democracy,  and 
at  last  sorrowfully  gave  them  up  to  the  more  inviting  service  of 
the  enemy.  The  marvellous  energy  displayed  by  one  of  these 
parties  during  the  late  war  has  since  been  triumphantly  turned 
into  the  channels  of  profligacy  and  plunder,  with  results  that 
have  startled  the  whole  land  and  made  its  very  name  a  stench  ; 
while  the  other,  throwing  away  its  many  opportunities  of  re 
trieving  its  fortunes  and  saving  its  once-honored  name  from 
disgrace,  has  joyfully  shared  in  the  worst  misdeeds  of  its  de 
bauched  rival,  and  thus  richly  earned  the  honors  of  burial  in 
a  common  grave.  No  friend  of  his  country  should  therefore 
think  of  pouring  the  new  wine  of  reform  into  these  old  bot 
tles,  now  so  thoroughly  defiled  by  foul  uses,  and  so  hope 
lessly  beyond  the  power  of  disinfection. 

What  we  want  is  a  perfectly  unshackled  movement  of  the 
people — a  fellowship  of  honest  men  in  every  section  of  the 
land — against  the  new  forms  of  aristocracy  which  the  greed 
of  sudden  wealth  and  the  agencies  of  modern  society  have 
created.  We  must  have  the  substance,  and  not  the  form 
merely,  of  free  institutions.  We  must  snatch  freedom  itself 
from  the  perilous  activities  quickened  into  life  by  its  own 
spirit.  We  must  search  out  new  defenses  of  democracy  in 


THE  NEW  TRIALS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  57 

the  new  trials  of  its  life.  The  grand  work  of  our  times  is 
not  the  highest  development  of  favored  individuals  or  classes, 
or  the  accumulation  of  great  wealth  in  their  hands,  but  the 
utmost  enlightenment  and  supreme  welfare  of  the  masses.  It 
is  not  the  exceptional  culture  or  commanding  advantage  of 
the  fe\v,  but  the  uplifting  of  the  many  to  a  higher  level.  This 
is  the  blessed  mission  of  Democracy,  and  the  true  religion  of 
humanity.  It  may  be  delayed  for  a  season.  It  may  be  tem 
porarily  frustrated  by  the  great  and  impending  dangers  I 
have  attempted  to  depict.  The  blindness  of  organized  cu 
pidity,  trampling  down  the  rights  of  the  people,  may  even 
precipitate  the  country  into  revolution  and  violence,  as  did 
the  slave  power  of  the  South,  but  in  the  end  democracy  will 
be  vindicated.  All  the  divine  forces  are  on  its  side.  Chris 
tianity  is  pledged  to  its  triumph  and  coincident  with  its  teach 
ings.  The  great  law  of  social  evolution  foreordains  it.  De 
mocracy  is  to  come  in  its  fulness,  sweeping  away  the  con-( 
spiracies  of  wealth  and  the  subterfuges  of  monopoly,  and 
enforcing  "all  rights  for  all;"  but  whether  this  shall  be 
sooner  or  later,  and  whether  heralded  by  the  kindly  agencies 
of  peace  or  the  harsh  power  of  war,  must  depend  upon  the 
wise  and  timely  use  of  opportunities.  The  result  is  certain, 
since  justice  can  not  finally  be  defeated,  but  the  circum 
stances  of  the  struggle  and  the  cost  of  the  triumph  are  com 
mitted  to  our  hands.  We  can  help,  or  hinder,  the  grand 
march  of  human  progress.  We  can  smooth  its  pathway  and 
speed  its  momentum,  or  fold  our  arms  in  slothful  indifference, 
and  thus  hand  it  over  to  the  unpitying  logic  of  events.  Let 
us  not  shrink  from  this  solemn  responsibility.  While  hold 
ing  fast  our  faith  in  God,  in  the  might  of  the  truth,  in  the 
victory  of  right  over  wrong,  let  us  dedicate  our  lives  anew 
to  the  grand  tasks  appointed  for  us  as  the  servants  of  our 
kind. 

"And  though  age  wearies  by  the  way, 

And  hearts  break  in  the  furrow, 
We  '11  sow  the  golden  grain  to-day, 

The  harvest  comes  to-morrow." 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED. 


DELIVERED  AT  VARIOUS  POINTS  IN  MICHIGAN  AND   IOWA 
IN  THE  YEAR  1874. 


[During  this  year  the  question  of  Woman  Suffrage  became  a  practical  one 
in  the  states  named  by  its  submission  to  the  people  as  a  proposed  constitutional 
amendment.  The  off-hand  and  colloquial  style  of  this  speech  makes  it  excep 
tional  in  character.] 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  It  must  be  quite  apparent  to  every 
thinking  man  and  woman  that  we  have  entered  upon  a  new 
epoch  in  our  politics,  a  new  dispensation  of  reform.  The  aboli 
tion  of  slavery  has  lifted  the  curtain  which  so  long  bounded  the 
horizon  of  progress,  and  brought  us  face  to  face  with  vital 
problems  which  else  might  have  remained  in  abeyance  for  gen 
erations.  "  It  is  not  only  the  slave  who  has  been  freed" — 
says  John  Stuart  Mill — "the  mind  of  America  has  been 
emancipated."  The  spirit  of  reform  is  in  the  air,  and  years 
are  now  crowded  into  days.  The  common  life  of  the  people 
palpitates  with  its  new-born  interest  in  momentous  questions 
which  have  hitherto  engrossed  the  attention  of  a  select  few. 
Even  our  little  boys  and  girls  have  caught  the  contagion, 
and  are  in  a  fair  way  to  outstrip  their  fathers  and  mothers  in 
a  knowledge  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  free  govern 
ment  and  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  citizen.  Indeed,  the 
\vork  of  social  evolution  has  secured  such  a  footing,  and  is 
impelled  by  such  an  impulse,  that  humanity  is  being  trun 
dled  onwards,  whether  it  sees  the  way  and  desires  to  move 
or  not ;  and  the  chief  work  of  the  reformer  to-day  is  to  oil 
the  machinery  of  progress  and  remove  certain  ugly  obstruc 
tions  from  its  path,  not  so  much  to  speed  its  momentum  as  to 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  59 

avert  the  dangerous  friction  which  is  always  threatened  by  a 
stupid  conservatism.  Permit  me  to  approach  my  subject  by 
referring  to  some  of  these  hindrances  to  progress. 

One  of  the  most  formidable  of  these  is  the  one-sidedness 
of  reform  movements.  All  reforms  constitute  a  brotherhood. 
They  have  their  logical  relationships  to  each  other,  and 
the  proper  rank  and  value  of  each  should  be  recognized. 
But  sometimes  we  lay  hold  of  a  particular  phase  of  a  reform, 
or  some  particular  method  of  serving  it,  and  push  it  into  a 
false  position.  We  unduly  emphasize  it,  and  confound  it 
with  the  reform  itself.  We  get  so  in  love  with  our  panacea 
that  the  welfare  of  the  patient  is  endangered.  Let  me  refer 
to  the  temperance  movement  as  an  illustration.  The  evils 
of  intemperance  are  not  only  great,  but  incalculable.  They 
fully  justify  a  specific,  organized  endeavor  to  suppress  them. 
But  we  must  remember  that  the  vice  of  drunkenness  is  an 
effect,  quite  as  much  as  a  cause.  It  has  its  genesis  in  une 
qual  laws,  in  the  domination  of  wealth  over  the  poor,  in  the 
lack  of  general  education,  in  inherited  infirmities,  physical 
and  mental,  in  the  false  maxims  of  our  modern  society  and 
civilization,  in  neglected  household  training, — in  a  word,  in 
untoward  social  conditions  which  must  be  radically  reformed 
before  we  can  strike  with  effect  at  the  root  of  the  evil.  The 
temperance  question  is  thus  a  many-sided  one.  The  tem 
perance  reform  presupposes  attention  to  vital  questions  which 
underlie  it,  and  which  must  be  intelligently  dealt  with  if  we 
would  go  beneath  the  surface.  It  involves,  in  fact,  the  gen 
eral  uplifting  of  humanity,  and  no  legislation  will  avail  much 
which  loses  sight  of  this  truth.  We  must  reform  our  land 
policy,  and  thus  facilitate  the  acquisition  of  homes  by  the 
poor.  We  must  curtail  the  remorseless  power  of  corporate 
wealth.  We  must  legislate  for  the  rights  of  labor,  as  well  as 
the  prerogatives  of  capital.  We  must  educate  the  masses, 
and  equalize  their  opportunities.  We  must  check  the  appe 
tite  for  drink  by  kindling  the  thirst  for  something  nobler. 
We  must  reduce  the  supply  of  alcohol  by  first  lessening  the 
demand.  The  magnitude  of  the  temperance  reform,  in  this 


60  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

comprehensive  sense,  can  not  well  be  overstated.  But  while 
it  summons  every  good  man  and  woman  to  its  support,  it 
gives  countenance  to  no  schemes  of  fanaticism.  Its  wisest 
friends  have  little  faith  in  the  sufficiency  of  any  legislative 
short-cut  to  the  virtue  of  temperance,  but  rely  chiefly  upon 
time,  toil,  and  patience,  in  dealing  with  the  essential  condi 
tions  of  progress.  They  comprehend  the  logic  of  their  en 
terprise,  and  its  inevitable  limitations,  and  only  expect  the 
final  overthrow  of  the  fabric  of  intemperance  by  undermining 
its  foundations.  This  view  of  the  temperance  reform  is  not 
very  satisfying  to  those  eager  and  impatient  men  whose  zeal 
for  the  good  cause  blinds  their  eyes  to  unwelcome  facts,  but 
the  truth  is  better  for  all  men  and  for  every  reform  than  any 
possible  delusion. 

The  anti-slavery  reform  furnishes  another  illustration  of 
my  thought.  The  abolition  of  negro  slavery  was  a  grand 
work,  but  it  was  the  abolition  of  one  form  of  servitude  only. 
Others  remain  to  be  abolished.  Among  these  is  that  system 
of  agricultural  serfdom  which  we  call  land  monopolv.  A 
government  which  allows  the  land  to  became  the  patrimony 
of  the  few  can  not  be  democratic,  can  not  be  free.  Land 
monopoly  is  one  form  of  slavery,  and,  indeed,  the  underly 
ing  foundation  of  all  slavery,  because  freedom  must  have  its 
roots  in  the  soil.  The  fact  will  not  be  disputed  that  the  land 
owners  of  every  country  are  its  masters,  and  I  repeat  what  I 
have  so  often  said,  that  under  our  popular  form  of  government 
w^e  must  have  small  farms,  thrifty  tillage,  compact  commu 
nities,  free  schools,  respect  for  honest  labor,  and  equality  of 
political  rights.  We  may  as  reasonably  attempt  to  make 
brick  without  straw  as  to  build  our  free  institutions  on  any 
narrower  foundation.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  journey  on 
as  we  have  started  towards  the  policy  of  large  estates,  widely- 
scattered  settlements,  slovenly  agriculture,  the  decline  of  ed 
ucation  and  the  arts,  contempt  for  honest  labor,  and  a  pam 
pered  aristocracy  lording  it  over  the  poor,  then  the  epitaph 
of  our  vaunted  free  government  may  be  written,  for  it  can 
not  stand.  In  one  of  the  states  of  our  Union  there  are  sev- 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  6 1 

eral  men  who  own  live  hundred  thousand  acres  each,  and  in 
crossing  one  of  these"  plantations  "  you  have  to  travel 
seventy-five  miles.  It  suggests  the  kindred  ease  of  an  Eng 
lish  lord  who  can  travel  from  his  castle  a  hundred  miles  in  a 
straight  line  on  his  own  estate — owning  the  land,  and  prac 
tically  owning  the  men  who  till  it.  Through  our  policy  of 
large  land  grants  to  corporations,  our  system  of  Indian  trea 
ties,  our  legalized  speculation  in  the  public  domain,  and 
other  forms  of  misgovernment  and  maladministration,  a  sys 
tem  of  feudalism  is  rapidly  taking  root  in  these  states  which 
should  alarm  every  friend  of  democratic  government.  Even 
in  old  Massachusetts,  where  American  liberty  and  local  self- 
government  had  their  birth  in  her  system  of  limited  land 
holding,  the  small  farms  are  rapidly  being  swallowed  up  by 
the  larger  ones,  while  a  crouching  tenantry  toils  for  absentee 
landlords.  This  growing  serfdom  must  be  resisted  and  over 
thrown,  and  it  constitutes  an  essential  part  of  the  anti-slavery 
movement. 

Commercial  Feudalism  is  another  remaining  form  of  sla 
very.  It  finds  its  fittest  expression  in  the  power  of  our  great 
corporations.  The  old  slave  power  had  an  estimated  com 
bined  capital  in  human  flesh  of  two  thousand  millions  of  dol 
lars.  It  ruled  the  nation  forty  years.  But  the  railway  power 
to-day  has  a  combined  capital  of  four  thousand  millions.  It 
has  in  its  employ  an  army  of  two  hundred  thousand  men,  in 
cluding  the  ablest  legal  talent  in  the  nation  and  a  considera 
ble  per  cent,  of  its  brains.  You  know  something  of  its  well 
nigh  absolute  power  over  Congress  and  our  state  legislatures. 
Already  it  has  been  crawling  into  our  courts  of  justice  and 
coiling  itself  about  the  necks  of  our  judges.  This  power  is 
kingly,  because  it  controls  the  makers  and  expounders  of  the 
laws,  and  through  its  great  corporations  is  practically  en 
dowed  wdth  life  offices  and  powers  of  hereditary  succession. 
In  the  days  of  slavery  it  was  exceedingly  hard  for  a  North 
ern  man  to  stand  up  in  Congress  and  look  the  slave  power 
in  the  face  ;  but  I  speak  from  personal  observation  and  ex 
perience  when  I  say  that  I  believe  it  to  be  quite  as  difficult 


62  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

now  for  a  member  of  Congress,  North  or  South,  to  face  the 
railway  power.  The  danger  is  different,  but  not  less.  It  is 
not  any  longer  the  fear  of  personal  violence,  or  the  frowns 
of  a  compact  oligarchy  of  domineering  men,  bnt  the  insidi 
ous  tactics  of  the  lobby,  in  sapping  and  mining  its  way 
through  the  consciences  of  members.  That  this  fearful  sys 
tem  of  serfdom  must  be  overthrown  will  not  be  disputed.  It 
is  a  new  form  of  slavery,  scarcely  a  generation  old,  but  it 
already  menaces  the  liberty  and  welfare  of  white  and  black, 
and  its  abolition  is  imperatively  demanded. 

The  logic  of  the.  anti-slavery  movement  demands  the  abo 
lition  of  another  form  of  slavery,  which  may  be  called  indus 
trial  serfdom.  It  has  its  birth  in  the  alliance  of  concentrated 
capital  with  labor-saving  machinery,  and  displays  its  worst 
qualities  in  the  Factory  System.  It  teaches  that  the  chief  end 
of  government  is  the  protection  of  property,  and  practically 
justifies  the  maxim  that  capital  should  own  labor.  It  pro 
poses  to  adjust  the  relations  of  capital  and  labor  by  the  law 
of  supply  and  demand,  and  it  commends  this  principle  to 
the  workingman  as  the  remedy  for  his  grievances.  No  form 
of  slavery  is  more  cruel,  for  its  tap-root  is  pure  cupidity,  the 
naked  rapacity  of  gain,  with  conscience  and  humanity  turned 
adrift.  Accordingly,  under  the  English  factory  system  be 
fore  Parliament  intervened,  men  and  women,  and  children 
of  very  tender  years,  were  worked  in  dismal  dungeons,  un 
der  cruel  task-masters,  from  twelve  to  twenty  hours  per  day, 
and  were  frightfully  brutalized  by  their  treatment.  Human 
ity  was  forgotten  in  the  worship  of  mammon  as  completely  as 
under  our  system  of  chattel  slavery.  The  defenders  of  this 
system  of  serfdom  should  remember  that  liberty  is  not  a 
mere  dream.  It  is  a  substance,  not  a  mocking  shadow.  It 
is  not  the  "  liberty  to  die  by  starvation,"  but  means  just  laws 
for  all.  It  means  opportunity.  It  means  a  home,  and  bread, 
and  education,  and  fair  play  in  the  race  of  life.  The  law  of 
supply  and  demand  is  well  enough  when  the  parties  stand  on 
an  equal  footing ;  but  when  the  capitalist  holds  the  laborer 
absolutely  in  his  power  this  law  is  a  mockery  of  justice. 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  63 

When  the  workingman,  with  no  capital  but  his  muscles, 
goes  into  the  labor  market,  he  must  sell  or  perish,  since  the 
employer  can  force  upon  him  the  alternative  of  starvation  on 
the  one  hand,  or  work  on  the  other  for  the  mere  pittance  he 
may  choose  to  offer.  The  principle  of  slavery  thus  neces 
sarily  involved  in.  the  dependence  and  helplessness  of  the 
poor,  should  be  restrained  by  legislation.  Government  should 
help  the  weak,  rather  than  the  strong.  From  the  beginning 
of  civilization  capital  has  been  the  world's  lawmaker,  and 
labor  has  been  enslaved  or  degraded  ;  but  slowly  and  grad 
ually  the  working  classes  are  emerging  from  their  bondage, 
and  their  final  emancipation  will  come  through  that  spirit  of 
humanity  which  triumphed  over  the  spirit  of  mammon  in  the 
abolition  of  negro  slavery. 

It  is  thus  evident,  my  friends,  that  the  slavery  question, 
like  that  of  temperance,  is  a  many-sided  one.  Devotion  to 
humanity  was  the  basis  of  the  anti-slavery  enterprise,  and 
that  devotion  should  find  expression  against  every  form  of 
oppression.  It  should  heed  the  logic  of  its  work,  and  when 
one  task  is  done  proceed  to  another.  The  abolition  of  the 
chattel  slavery  of  the  southern  negro  only  brought  anti- 
slavery  men  to  the  threshold  of  their  undertaking.  It  was 
the  mere  prelude  to  a  far  grander  movement,  looking  to  the 
emancipation  of  all  races  from  all  forms  of  slavery.  It  not 
only  opens  the  way  for  systematic  opposition  to  the  several 
forms  of  slavery  I  have  mentioned,  but  it  makes  inevitable 
the  demand  for  the  enfranchisement  of  woman  ;  and  thus  I 
am  naturally  conducted  to  the  principal  subject  of  my  pres 
ent  discourse. 

In  entering  upon  it,  let  us  first  endeavor,  if  possible,  to 
ascertain  how  far  we  are  united,  and  how  far  we  are  divided. 
Let  us  determine  how  much  common  ground  there  is  on 
which  all  of  us  can  stand,  and  how  narrow  is  the  territory  in 
dispute.  Let  us  see,  as  clearly  and  as  precisely  as  we  can, 
what  is  affirmed  on  the  one  side  and  denied  on  the  other,  so 
that  we  may  hope  for  an  intelligent  and  decisive  verdict  upon 
the  issue  we  are  to  try.  I  ask  you  to  follow  me,  step  by  step, 


64  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

in  the  argument  I  shall  make,  and  if  I  do  not  deal  fairly 
with  the  subject  I  bespeak  your  condemnation.  But  if  I  rest 
my  argument  on  undisputed  facts  and  the  conclusions  which 
inevitably  follow  my  premises,  then,  as  a  matter  of  simple 
fair-dealing,  I  ask  you  to  surrender  your  prejudices  and  lay 
hold  of  the  truth. 

In  the  first  place,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  we  are  all 
agreed  in  the  purpose  to  stand  by  our  popular  form  of  gov 
ernment.  I  assume  that  none  of  you  desire  to  reopen  the 
controversy  between  monarchy  and  aristocracy  on  the  one 
hand,  and  democracy  on  the  other,  which  was  settled  by  our 
fathers  a  century  ago  in  the  forum  of  argument  and  by  the 
ordeal  of  battle.  You  would  not  call  in  a  king  and  reinstate 
an  order  of  nobility  if  you  could  ;  or  if  such  persons  exist  in 
our  midst  they  are  so  few  in  numbers  and  so  prudently  non 
committal  that  I  need  not  notice  them  in  dealing  with  the 
problem  I  am  considering.  You  all  believe  in  a  "govern 
ment  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,"  and 
you  all  concede  that  it  must  be  carried  on  by  a  majority, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  ballot.  So  far,  I  am  sure, 
there  is  no  difference  of  opinion  between  the  friends  and 
opponents  of  woman's  enfranchisement. 

We  are  equally  agreed  upon  the  fundamental  principle  of 
American  democracy,  that  in  the  exercise  of  the  right  of 
suffrage  there  shall  be  no  qualification  founded  on  property. 
It  makes  no  difference  whether  the  voter  is  worth  one  hun 
dred  dollars  or  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  for  we  agree 
with  Dr.  Franklin  that  "the  poor  man  has  an  equal  right, 
but  greater  need,  of  the  ballot,  than  the  rich  man."  In  the 
early  period  of  our  grand  experiment  a  property  qualification 
was  required  in  all  the  states  ;  but  as  a  nation  we  have  long 
since  outgrown  this  political  folly.  I  rejoice  that  we  have 
done  so,  for  if  we  had  allowed  this  heresy  to  be  engrafted 
upon  our  system  of  government  the  right  of  property  to  rule 
would  have  been  recognized,  and  the  corruption  of  voters 
and  the  bribery  of  officials  would  have  been  legitimated.  In 
disowning  this  qualification  the  American  people  have  wisely 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  65 

placed  humanity  before  property,  repudiating  the  European 
principle  that  the  chief  end  of  government  is  the  protection 
of  what  a  man  owns,  and  not  of  the  owner  himself. 

In  the  next  place,  we  have  definitely  settled  the  kindred 
principle  that  the  right  to  vote  shall  not  depend  upon  the 
.-nativity  of  the  voter,  or  the  race  to  which  he  belongs,  or  the 
color  of  his  skin,  or  the  religion  he  may  have  embraced. 
The  foreigner,  upon  a  brief  probation,  is  allowed  his  equal 
right  with  the  native  to  share  in  the  government.  To  have 
denied  him  this  right  would  have  been  as  mean  a  political 
'discrimination  as  can  well  be  conceived,  since  he  is  no  more 
to  be  blamed  for  having  been  born  abroad  than  the  native  is 
to  be  praised  for  his  accidental  birth  here.  So  of  the  ques 
tion  of  race.  The  various  nationalities  and  races  of  the  civ 
ilized  world  have  sought  their  welfare  in  this  grand  political 
asylum,  and  they  are  all  made  welcome  to  the  hospitality  of 
equal  rights.  So,  likewise,  the  color  of  the  skin  is  no  longer 
a  bar  to  the  right  of  suffrage.  Some  of  you  earnestly  op 
posed  the  enfranchisement  of  the  negro,  while  others  assented 
to  it  with  hesitation  and  reluctance,  but  whether  you  were  wil 
ling  or  unwilling,  it  has  been  done,  and  nobody  pretends  that 
it  will  be  undone.  No  party  proposes,  or  is  likely  to  propose, 
the  disfranchisement  of  the  black  millions  who  are  now  play 
ing  their  part  in  American  politics,  and  whose  loyalty  to  our 
flag  in  the  nation's  great  peril  was  never  found  wanting. 
Necessity,  which  knows  no  law,  rather  than  our  love  of  the 
negro,  or  our  devotion  to  democracy,  has  compelled  us  to 
treat  the  African  as  a  man,  and  to  recognize  his  rights  as  a 
-citizen.  In  like  manner  we  have  no  religious  test  of  fitness 
to  vote,  because  wre  have  no  established  religion.  The  gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States  has  no  religion,  and  in  the  light 
•of  current  political  events  I  think  you  will  not  dispute  this 
fact.  It  is  not  sir-religious,  but  non-religious.  Theists,  Athe 
ists,  Jews,  Christians,  Mohammedans,  and  Pagans,  are  equal 
before  the  constitution  and  at  the  ballot-box.  During  the 

O 

Black  Friday  of  Know-nothingism,  twenty  odd  years  ago, 
an  attempt  was  made  to  institute  a  religious  qualification  for 

5 


66  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

suffrage,  but  it  failed   so  signally  that  it  will  scarcely  be  re 
peated. 

Still  another  cardinal  principle  of  our  democracy  has  been 
settled,  namely,  that  no  literary  qualification  for  the  ballot 
shall  be  demanded.  This  is  settled  by  American  usage.  It 
may  be  regarded  as  our  political  common  law.  Some  years 
ago  Massachusetts  adopted  a  reading  and  writing  qualifica 
tion,  and  I  believe  she  still  nominally  retains  it;  but  her  ex 
ample  has  not  been  followed.  Reading  and  writing  are  me 
chanical  operations.  According  to  the  late  census  tables  we 
have  in  the  United  States  over  one  million  six  hundred  thou 
sand  males  over  twenty-one  years  old  who  can  neither  read 
the  constitution  nor  write  their-  names.  They  freely  share 
with  the  educated  classes  in  the  exercise  of  political  power, 
and  no  intelligent  man  anticipates  their  disfranchisement. 
We  give  these  uneducated  masses  the  ballot  for  three  princi 
pal  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  we  hold  that  the  ballot  is 
itself  a  schoolmaster,  and  consequently  that  one  of  the  means 
of  fitting  men  to  use  it  is  to  put  it  into  their  hands.  We  be 
lieve,  with  Archbishop  Whately,  that  "  to  wait  before  you  be 
stow  liberty  or  political  rights  till  the  recipients  are  fit  to  em 
ploy  them  aright,  is  to  resolve  not  to  go  into  the  water  till  you 
can  swim.7'  We  agree  with  Lord  Macaulay,  that  "if  men 
are  to  wait  till  they  become  wise  and  good  in  slavery,  the*y 
may  indeed  wait  forever."  In  the  second  place,  we  believe 
it  is  far  less  difficult  to  manage  a  great  mass  of  unenlightened 
men  by  giving  them  a  share  in  the  government,  a  stake  in  its- 
success,  and  an  incentive  to  rise,  than  by  imposing  upon  them 
its  burdens  while  withholding  their  political  rights,  and  thus 
tempting  them  to  become  domestic  enemies  by  making  them 
aliens  in  heart.  In  the  third  place,  the  denial  of  the  ballot  to 
our  illiterate  citizens  would  inaugurate  class  legislation,  and 
all  class  rule  is  vicious.  It  would  confide  political  power  ex 
clusively  to  those  who  are  best  able  to  take  care  of  them 
selves  without  it,  while  the  ignorant,  who  would  especially 
need  the  ballot  as  their  defense  against  a  privileged  class, 
would  be  helpless.  We  agree  with  Richard  Cobden,  that 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  67 

one  of  the  chief  arguments  in  favor  of  the  extension  of  the 
suffrage  is  that  it  promotes  the  extension  of  education,  as  it 
has  done  in  England.  Privilege  always  takes  care  of  itself, 
and  always  stands  in  the  path  of  the  unprivileged. 

These  are  the  decided  convictions  of  the  great  body  of 
the  American  people,  and  I  believe  nothing  is  more  morally 
certain  than  that  they  will  stand  by  them.  They  do  not  dis 
parage  education.  Their  interest  in  the  subject  is  constantly 
and  increasingly  manifested.  Even  the  policy  of  compulsory 
education  is  rapidly  growing  in  general  favor.  Their  pur 
pose  is  more  and  more  evident  to  make  universal  enlighten 
ment,  as  far  as  possible,  go  hand  in  hand  with  universal  suf 
frage.  They  understand  that  the  ultimate  tendency  of  knowl 
edge  in  any  state  or  community  is  good,  and  that  through  its 
diffusion  lies  the  only  sure  way  out  of  comparative  barbarism 
into  a  higher  and  higher  civilization.  But  they  regard  as 
both  unwise  and  impracticable  the  policy  of  requiring  any 
specific  educational  test  of  fitness  for  the  exercise  of  political 
power  in  the  United  States.  In  doing  so  I  believe  they  have 
builded  wiser  than  they  knew.  Time  is  vindicating  them,, 
and  the  best  thought  of  the  age  sustains  them.  Herbert 
Spencer  asks  such  questions  as  these  :  What  connection  is 
there  between  the  ability  to  read,  or  the  knowledge  that  cer 
tain  marks  on  paper  stand  for  certain  sounds,  and  a  higher 
sense  of  duty?  How  can  a  knowledge  of  penmanship  in 
crease  the  desire  to  do  right?  How  can  a  knowledge  of  the 
multiplication  table,  or  quickness  in  adding  or  dividing, 
restrain  the  desire  to  trespass  on  the  rights  of  others?  How 
can  accuracy  in  spelling  or  parsing  make  the  sentiment  of 
justice  stronger?  He  insists  that  the  attempt  to  teach  moral 
or  political  duties  by  the  mere  training  of  the  intellect  is  an 
absurdity  as  great  as  would  be  the  attempt  to  teach  geometry 
by  the  study  of  Latin,  or  drawing  by  the  study  of  music.  In 
tellect  has  no  conscience,  and  therefore  its  discipline  will 
neither  teach  a  man  his  duty  to  his  country  or  to  his  neigh 
bor.  It  can  no  more  judge  of  right  and  wrong  than  a  blind 
man  can  judge  of  colors.  Do  you  doubt  the  soundness  of 


68  SELECTED    SPEECHES 

these  views?  Are  they  not  almost  daily  justified  by  startling, 
and  multiplied  facts?  Who  are  the  foremost  rascals  of  our 
time  ?  A  goodly  per  cent,  of  them  are  educated  men,  includ 
ing  fraudulent  bankrupts,  embezzlers  of  public  money,  bank 
cashiers,  the  concoctors  of  thieving  corporations,  the  makers 
of  adulterated  goods,  the  receivers  and  givers  of  bribes 
among  the  so-called  higher  classes,  and  sometimes  govern 
ors  of  states,  members  of  Congress,  cabinet  ministers,  and 
eminent  clergymen. 

The  rebel  leaders  of  the  South  were  educated  men,  who 
ransacked  history  for  precedents  for  their  infernal  crusade 
against  the  rights  of  man  ;  while  nearly  the  entire  literary 
class  in  England  has  been  on  the  side  of  power  in  its  conflict 
with  the  people.  History  tells  us  that  Greece,  in  her  decay, 
was  crowded  with  rhetoricians  and  sophists,  while  her  citi 
zens  were  slaves  ;  and  that  Rome,  in  her  transition  from  a 
nation  to  an  empire,  was  characterized  by  a  wide  intellectual 
culture.  In  the  progress  of  political  and  economic  science, 
in  modern  times,  many  of  the  men  least  fitted  for  the  art  of 
government  and  most  obstinately  opposed  to  all  great  reforms 
have  been  the  graduates  of  universites.  The  lesson  taught  by 
such  facts  is  that  in  dealing  with  moral  and  social  problems 
we  must  study  the  relationship  of  conduct  and  feeling,  and 
rely  upon  the  education  of  the  heart.  This  will  point  the 
way  to  the  duties  of  citizenship  as  well  as  all  other  duties. 
"  Talent,"  says  Emerson,  "  uniformly  sinks  with  character." 
**  In  work,"  says  one  of  our  first  political  writers,  "  rather  than 
in  a  certain  literary  or  scientific  acquisition,  is  the  evidence 
of  the  capacity  for  political  power ;  the  life  of  the  workman, 
the  fulfillment  of  human  relationships  in  the  family  and  com 
munity,  the  endeavor  of  men  in  the  realities  of  life,  is  a  deeper 
education."  For  the  truth  of  this  I  appeal  confidently  to 
the  testimony  of  your  own  experience  and  common  sense. 
The  man  who  loves  his  home  and  is  true  in  the  relations  of 
family  and  neighborhood  is  entitled  to  the  ballot,  whether 
technically  educated  or  not.  "  Whosoever,"  in  the  language 
of  Milton,  *'  has  but  sucked  in  this  principle,  that  he  was  not 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  69 

born  for  his  prince,  but  for  God  and  his  country,"  has  as 
sacred  a  right  to  share  in  its  government  as  the  best  educated 
man  in  it ;  and  I  would  quite  as  willingly  commit  the  public  wel 
fare  to  the  keeping  of  such  men  as  to  those  who  have  gone 
through  the  educational  drilling  so  graphically  described  by 
Carlyle,  as  "  working  into  the  mental  food  of  our  children 
a  yeast  of  frothy  vocables,  and  littering  the  roots  of  their 
brains  with  etymological  compost,  words  and  not  things,  the 
oretical  and  not  practical  training." 

Thus  far,  my  friends,  I  think  we  stand  together.  We 
are  all  in  favor  of  our  democratic  form  of  government,  and 
we  all  agree  that  it  must  be  carried  on  by  a  majority,  through 
the  agency  of  the  ballot.  We  all  agree  that  the  right  of  suf 
frage  does  not  depend  upon  property,  or  nativity,  or  race,  or 
color,  or  religion,  or  any  specific  literary  qualification.  We 
have  settled  it  that  none  of  these  mere  accidents  of  humanity 
can  be  the  basis  of  the  right,  and  consequently  that  it  must 
rest  upon  humanity  itself.  The  right  to  the  ballot,  therefore, 
by  which  I  mean  the  right  to  be  represented  in  the  organism 
which  deals  with  your  liberty,  your  property,  and  your  life, 
is  as  natural  and  as  inborn  as  the  right  to  the  breath  of  your 
nostrils.  A  responsible  human  being,  innocent  of  crime, 
yielding  his  allegiance  to  the  government,  answerable  to  it 
in  his  person  and  property  for  disobedience,  and  yet  denied 
any  political  right,  is  a  slave.  So  thought  Samuel  Adams, 
James  Otis,  and  the  Fathers,  and  if  it  is  not  true,  then  nothing 
is  true.  "Taxation  without  representation  is  tyranny  ;  "  that 
is  to  say,  a  man  who  is  taxed  and  governed,  with  no  voice 
in  the  taxing  and  governing  power,  is  not  and  can  not  be 
free.  Dr.  Franklin  says  that  "they  who  have  no  voice  nor 
vote  in  the  choosing  of  representatives  do  not  enjoy  liberty, 
but  are  absolutely  enslaved  to  those  who  have  votes."  Will 
any  American  deny  this?  The  essence  of  slavery  is  en 
forced  obedience  to  irresponsible  power,  and  therefore  it  can 
make  no  difference  in  principle  whether  that  power  is  exer 
cised  by  a  single  master  or  by  society.  As  to  the  suffrage,  I 
admit  that  the  manner  and  circumstances  of  its  exercise  are 


7O  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

properly  conventional,  as,  for  example,  whether  the  citizen 
shall  vote  under  a  registry  law  or  without  it,  whether  he 
shall  vote  viva  voce  or  by  ballot,  whether  he  shall  vote  in  his 
precinct,  or  without  such  restriction  ;  but  the  right  itself  to  be 
represented  is  a  totally  different  matter,  and  is  as  natural  as  the 
right  to  liberty  or  life.  If  not,  then  there  are  no  natural  rights, 
since  neither  liberty  nor  life  itself  could  be  enjoyed  save  by 
the  mere  mercy  or  grace  of  the  governing  power.  I  am  sure 
you  will  agree  that  the  fundamental  idea  of  democracy  is  the 
equality  and  sacredness  of  human  rights,  and  the  consent 
of  the  people  as  the  only  basis  of  government ;  but  this 
idea  is  completely  overthrown  if  any  class  of  citizens  can  be 
deprived  of  their  common  and  equal  right  with  all  others  to 
be  heard  through  their  representatives.  It  is  no  answer  to 
my  position  to  say  that  the  state  always  determines  who  shall 
participate  in  its  powers,  and  that  therefore  the  right  to  vote 
is  necessarily  conventional.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the 
state,  through  the  machinery  we  call  government,  does  de 
cide  who  shall  be  entrusted  with  its  powers  ;  but  the  very 
point  I  am  arguing  is  the  principle  on  which  the  state  is 
bound  to  make  its  decision,  where  the  people  themselves  are 
the  rulers.  A  free  government  is  one  carried  on  by  the  free 
choice  of  the  people,  and  it  unavoidably  follows  that  every 
citizen  having  the  capacity  to  choose  has  the  same  perfect 
and  inherent  right  of  choice  as  every  like  citizen.  The  gov 
ernment,  for  example,  may  withhold  the  right  of  suffrage 
from  infants,  idiots  and  lunatics.  The  very  principle  of  rep 
resentative  government  demands  this,  since  these  persons 
are  wanting  in  the  power  of  choice,  or  self-determination. 
On  kindred  grounds,  it  may  withhold  the  ballot  from  those 
who  have  committed  high  crimes,  and  have  thus  proved 
themselves  lacking  in  the  moral  power  of  choosing.  But 
with  these  unavoidable  exceptions,  which  only  prove  the 
general  principle  I  have  been  affirming,  the  state  can  not 
deny  the  right  of  representation  to  any  of  its  citizens  without 
espousing  the  maxims  of  despotism.  To  argue  the  question 
further  would  be  an  inexcusable  affront  to  common  sense. 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  71 

And  here,  at  length,  are  we  brought  directly  to  the  ques 
tion  of  woman's  right  to  the  ballot.  We  touch  the  simple, 
naked  and  sole  issue  to  be  tried.  Having  demonstrated  that 
the  right  of  representation  rests  upon  personality,  that  is  to 
say  upon  humanity  itself,  being  the  inherent  right  of  the  peo 
ple  to  choose  their  rulers  and  manage  their  own  affairs,  it 
only  remains  to  inquire  whether  woman  is  a  part  of  humanity. 
Is  she  a  human  being?  If  so,  then  my  argument  is  clinched, 
and  nothing  more  need  be  said.  If  she  is  not,  then  the  case 
must  go  against  her.  On  this  question  of  fact,  I  repeat,  the 
whole  controversy  must  turn,  for  if  the  opponents  of  woman's 
enfranchisement  admit  the  affirmative,  they  admit  away  their 
whole  case.  I  expect  them  to  face  this  issue  as  becomes 
brave  men.  Twenty  years  ago,  when  the  champions  of 
slavery  were  driven  to  the  wall  by  the  humanitarian  argu 
ments  and  appeals  of  the  abolitionists,  their  respect  for  logical 
consistency  finally  compelled  them  to  deny  that  the  ne^ro  be 
longs  to  the  human  species.  They  pronounced  him  a  monkey, 
or  an  orang-outang,  and  thus  made  his  humanity  the  single 
issue  in  the  angry  dispute  about  slavery.  Their  perfect  cour 
age  was  only  equalled  by  their  perfect  contempt  for  common 
sense.  Their  absolute  fidelity  to  the  logic  of  an  infernal  en 
terprise  was  so  charmingly  intrepid  that  I  think  it  commanded 
general  admiration,  when  contrasted  with  the  cowardly  pet 
tifogging  by  which  the  doughfaces  sought  to  reconcile  the 
crime  of  slaveholding  with  the  rights  of  humanity.  I  commend 
the  example  of  these  heroic  men  to  the  enemies  of  woman's 
enfranchisement,  and  I  trust  their  courage  may  prove  equally 
heroic.  I  think  they  will  be  found  ready,  at  all  events,  to 
face  the  only  issue  involved  in  the  controversy,  and  either 
have  the  gallantry  to  surrender  at  discretion,  or  the  match 
less  audacity  to  deny  the  humanity  of  the  mothers  who  bore 
them.  Taking  the  latter  for  granted,  I  must  meet  them  on 
their  own  ground,  and  insist  that  woman  is  a  part  of  the  hu 
man  family.  This  is  my  decided  opinion.  Indeed,  I  have 
always  understood  that  fully  one-half  the  human  race  is  fem 
inine.  Woman  stands  related  to  us  as  wife,  mother,  sister 


72  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

and  daughter.  She  is  a  citizen  by  the  unmistakable  words- 
of  the  constitution.  She  is  a  tax-payer,  and  as  to  certain- 
positions,  in  some  of  the  states,  she  is  already  allowed  to 
vote  and  hold  office.  We  are  enlarging  her  sphere  of  em 
ployment,  and  increasing  her  compensation  for  her  work. 
We  are  recognizing  her  equality  with  man  by  securing  to 
her  the  same  educational  opportunities.  We  imprison  her 
for  crime  and  hang  her  for  murder.  We  baptize  her  as  a 
Christian,  and  send  her  abroad  as  a  missionary.  I  suppose 
Christ  died  for  her  in  the  same  sense  in  which  he  died  for 
man.  She  is  endowed  with  the  same  faculties  and  affec 
tions,  is  animated  by  the  same  hopes,  shares  with  man  his 
joys  and  sorrows,  and  strives  with  him  for  the  same  bless 
ings.  Indeed,  the  case  seems  to  me  so  plain  that  until  those 
who  deny  woman's  humanity  are  more  particularly  heard 
from,  it  can  hardly  be  worth  while  to  argue  the  question 
further. 

But  perhaps,  after  all,  they  will  admit  it,  and  still  insist 
that  she  shall  not  vote  because  of  her  sex.  But  in  the  name 
of  justice  and  political  decency  what  has  sex  to  do  with  the- 
question  of  moral  and  political  right?  If  you  say  to  woman, 
"You  shall  not  vote  because  you  are  a  woman, v  and  she 
retorts,  "  You  shall  not  vote  because  you  are  a  man,"  is  not 
the  account  balanced?  You  agree  with  me  in  disowning  the 
principle  of  an  aristocracy  founded  on  property,  or  nativity, 
or  race,  or  color,  or  religion,  and  yet  you  approve  an  aristoc 
racy  founded  on  sex,  which  is  just  as  anti-republican  and  in 
defensible,  and  if  possible  still  more  hateful. 

But  you  will  say,  perhaps,  that  you  would  not  withhold  the 
ballot  from  woman  because  of  her  sex,  but  her  inferiority.  I 
answer,  that  in  mere  muscle  and  general  physical  power  she 
is  unquestionably  inferior,  as  a  rule,  to  man  ;  but  I  have  not 
yet  learned  that  our  American  democracy  has  instituted  any 
test  of  mere  bodily  strength  as  a  qualification  for  voting.  Do- 
we  require  a  man  to  be  a  Samson  before  we  allow  him  the 
ballot?  On  the  contrary,  the  smallest  and  feeblest  men  have 
equal  rights  with  the  largest  and  stoutest.  We  sometimes- 
carry  to  the  polls  cripples,  and  men  in  the  last  stages  of  in- 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  73 

curable  disease.  Do  you  tell  me  that  the  inferiority  you  com 
plain  of  is  not  physical,  but  intellectual?  Let  me,  for  the 
sake  of  the  argument,  admit  this  inferiority.  Let  me  accept 
the  declaration  so  often  made  that  in  the  higher  departments 
of  science,  philosophy,  and  art,  woman  is  inferior  to  man, 
and  that  history  has  so  made  the  record.  What  then?  Is  it 
a  part  of  the  gospel  of  democracy  that  none  but  great  scien 
tists,  philosophers,  and  artists  shall  vote?  I  think  I  have 
seen  a  good  many  men  vote  who  would  have  been  excluded 
by  any  such  rule.  Why  raise  the  question  of  intellectual  in 
feriority,  when  we  give  the  ballot  to  the  whole  mass  of  our 
male  population  above  the  level  of  idiots  and  lunatics?  Be 
sides,  do  you  not  see  that  the  argument  of  inferiority  is  not 
an  argument  against,  but  in  favor  of,  woman's  enfranchise 
ment?  If  she  is  really  inferior  to  man  in  capacity,  and  con 
sequently  less  fitted  to  take  care  of  herself,  does  she  not  need 
the  ballot  all  the  more  for  her  protection  and  help?  Is  not 
the  law  intended  for  the  weak?  And  is  not  the  ballot  in  the 
hands  of  man  the  gateway  to  opportunity  and  the  defense  of 
his  rights?  If  woman  is  man's  inferior,  and  is  obliged  all  the 
days  of  her  life  to  encounter  the  sharpened  faculties  of  a  su 
perior  order  of  beings  who  have  thus  far  made  her  a  slave  or 
a  dependent,  it  must  be  quite  evident  that  this  is  the  strong 
est  possible  argument  for  giving  her  a  voice  in  the  manage 
ment  of  public  affairs. 

But,  in  answer  to  all  this,  or  in  evasion  ot  it,  I  shall  be 
told  that  woman  is  not  Jit  for  the  ballot.  Let  me  ask,  what 
is  fitness  to  vote?  I  repeat  what  I  said  years  ago  in  arguing 
the  question  of  negro  suffrage,  that  fitness  is  a  relative  term. 
Nobody  is  perfectly  fit  to  vote,  because  perfect  fitness  would 
require  perfect  knowledge  and  perfect  virtue.  A  man  would 
have  to  be  a  god,  or  an  angel.  The  truth  is,  we  are  all  more 
or  less  unfit  for  all  our  duties,  whether  civil,  social,  religious, 
or  what  not.  The  fitness  to  govern  which  must  be  our  reli 
ance,  as  I  have  already  argued,  is  not  scientific  or  literary. 
It  is  not  the  fitness  of  a  select  few,  but  of  the  many.  It  is  aggre 
gate  fitness.  During  the  late  civil  war,  and  in  all  our  pre- 


74  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

vious  trials,  our  deliverance  came  through  the  inconspicuous, 
unheralded  rank  and  tile,  "the  common  people,''  whose  in 
tegrity  of  character,  solid  sense,  and  well-ordered  homes 
have  given  the  republic  its  place  among  the  nations.  In  the 
light  of  this  fact,  who  shall  bar  the  door  against  the  political 
rights  of  woman?  Who  of  us  can  object  to  her  fitness,  after 
giving  the  ballot  to  ignorant  and  untrained  masses  of  males, 
north  and  south,  white  and  black?  What  possible  test  of  fit 
ness  would  exclude  woman  that  would  not  disfranchise  mil 
lions  of  our  male  voters? 

The  plea  of  unfitness  seems  still  more  preposterous  if  we 
keep  in  mind  the  ugly  facts  which  our  masculine  voting  has 
brought  to  the  surface.  Women,  we  are  told,  are  unfit  to 
vote.  If  enfranchised,  they  would  vote  on  the  wrong  side. 
Undoubtedly  they  would  sometimes  do  so.  They  would 
make  mistakes  ;  but  could  they  not  profit  by  them?  And  if 
a  careful  search  were  made,  is  it  not  barely  possible  that 
cases  could  be  found  in  which  men  have  voted  on  the  wrong 
side?  I  think  I  have  known  such  cases  myself,  and  proba 
bly  you  can  recall  others.  How  stands  the  account?  Have 
we,  in  fact,  such  a  record  as  makes  it  decent  for  us  to  sit  in 
judgment  upon  the  fitness  of  woman  for  politics?  Look  at 
our  Sanborn  contracts,  our  Moiety  system,  and  our  custom 
house  thieving.  Look  a't  our  eminent  Christian  statesmen 
auctioning  their  consciences  to  a  great  railway  corporation. 
Look  at  the  great  salary  theft  of  the  last  Congress.  Look 
at  our  civil  service  to-day,  as  foul  and  feculent  a  system  of 
huckstering  and  plunder  as  our  thoroughly  debauched  party 
politics  could  make  it.  Look  at  our  drunken  libertines  ele 
vated  to  high  places  by  male  voting.  Look  at  the  open  and 
wholesale  pollution  of  the  ballot,  and  the  spectacle  of  bribery 
and  perjury  we  have  witnessed  in  so  many  states.  Look  at 
the  frightful  decay  of  political  morality  in  every  section  of 
the  land,  and  listen  to  the  prayers  of  good  men  for  a  speedy 
resurrection  of  conscience  as  the  only  possible  salvation  of 
the  country  ! 

Or  look  at   the   wisdom   which  male  suffrage  has   made 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  75 

manifest  in  our  parties  and  politicians.  Take  the  tariff' ques 
tion.  It  is  as  unsettled  as  it  was  a  half  century  ago.  Each 
of  the  great  parties  is  divided  upon  it,  and  neither  can  define 
its  position.  So  of  the  question  of  railway  transportation. 
Neither  is  competent  to  deal  with  it,  and  neither,  as  a  party, 
has  any  defined  position  respecting  it.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  finance  question.  As  national  parties  they  are  internally 
divided,  while  no  man  can  name  any  vital  point  on  which 
they  stand  opposed.  Some  of  the  leaders  of  both  are  for 
hard  money  and  a  return  to  specie  payments,  while  others 
scout  this  idea,  demand  more  printed  money,  and  refer  to 
Adam  Smith  and  John  Stuart  Mill  as  theorists  and  dreamers 
whose  doctrines  of  political  economy  are  not  applicable  to 
the  United  States.  Take  the  slavery  question.  Male  suf 
frage  could  not  settle  it,  and  we  were  obliged  to  try  it  by  bat 
tle.  The  labor  question  succeeds  it,  and  no  party  has  yet 
appeared  that  seems  at  all  able  to  grapple  with  it.  On  the 
temperance  question  our  parties  have  tried  their  hand  at  leg 
islation  for  more  than  a  generation,  but  thus  far  the  result  is 
a  muddle.  The  picture  thus  imperfectly  sketched  is  the  pic 
ture  of  our  country  under  the  full  blaze  of  masculine  wisdom 
and  virtue  ;  and  I  respectfully  submit  that  it  does  not  war 
rant  the  arraignment  of  woman  as  unfit  to  share  in  our  poli 
tics.  On  the  contrary,  I  think  it  shows  the  need  of  her  help 
ing  hand  and  saving  grace,  unless  we  decide  to  jump  out  of 
our  democratic  frying  pan  into  the  fire  of  kingly  rule,  which 
we  have  resolved  not  to  do. 

But  we  are  told  of  the  dreadful  consequences  that  will 
ensue  if  we  give  the  ballot  to  woman.  It  will  "  upheave' the 
whole  social  system,"  ''destroy  the  family,"  inaugurate  "free 
love,"  and  "  make  Beecher-Tilton  scandals  the  order  of  the 
day."  This  is  the  current  style  of  argument,  and  by  far  the 
most  effective  one  I  find  employed  ;  and  yet  it  is  palpably  no 
argument  at  all  against  woman's  enfranchisement,  but  simply 
a  prediction  that  certain  consequences  would  follow  the 
event.  I  meet  it  in  the  words  of  one  of  the  world's  greatest 
living  thinkers,  in  speaking  of  "logical  consequences."  He 


76  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

says:  "  In  the  course  of  my  experience  I  have  found  that 
they  are  the  scare-crows  of  fools,  and  the  beacons  of  wise 
men,"  and  that  "The  only  question  for  any  man  to  ask  is 
this:  Is  this  true,  or  is  it  false?  No  other  question  can  pos 
sibly  be  taken  into  consideration  till  this  one  is  settled."  I 
have  demonstrated  woman's  equal  right  with  man  to  share 
in  the  government.  I  have  shown  that  the  question  of  wom 
an's  rights  is  the  question  of  human  rights,  and  consequently 
that  if  her  right  of  representation  is  conventional  merely,  to 
be  granted  or  denied  at  the  pleasure  of  government,  the  very 
principle  of  popular  liberty  is  superseded  by  the  principle  of 
absolutism.  Is  my  argument  valid?  That  is  the  question 
first  of  all  to  be  disposed  of,  and  I  may  decline  to  discuss  any 
other  till  it  is  settled.  Until  the  opponents  of  woman's  en 
franchisement  face  this  question  and  show  the  fallacy  of  my 
argument,  I  must  treat  their  "  logical  consequences  "  as  the 
"scare-crows  of  fools."  If,  as  I  insist,  woman  has  exactly 
the  same  right  to  a  voice  in  the  government  as  man,  it  is  the 
duty  of  man  to  recognize  that  right,  and  the  consequences 
have  no  more  to  do  with  the  performance  of  this  duty  than 
with  obedience  to  the  commands  of  the  decalogue.  They 
can  no  more  excuse  that  duty  than  they  can  excuse  any  other 
duty,  whether  enjoined  by  morals  or  religion.  You  might 
just  as  reasonably  object  to  the  Golden  Rule  that  obedience 
to  it  would  turn  the  world  up-side  down,  or  refuse  to  do  right 
because  the  heavens  will  surely  fall  if  you  do,  or  decline  to 
speak  the  truth  and  deal  justly  because  it  would  "upheave 
the  whole  social  system."  Such  arguments  are  as  shallow 
as  thev  are  atheistical,  and  a  good  cause  would  disown  them. 
They  are,  however,  the  staple  of  conservatism,  which  stu 
pidly  turns  its  back  upon  all  the  lessons  of  experience. 
When  the  repeal  of  the  English  corn  laws  was  first  proposed, 
national  ruin  was  predicted  as  a  certain  result.  When  Clark- 
son  began  his  agitation  for  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade, 
the  same  prophesy  was  made.  When  it  was  proposed  to  arm 
the  negroes  in  the  late  Civil  War,  and  employ  them  on  the 
side  of  the  government,  it  was  said  they  would  certainly  fight 


THE  SLAVERY  YET  TO  BE  ABOLISHED.  77 

for  their  masters.  It  was  always  confidently  predicted  that 
the  abolition  of  slavery  would  be  followed  by  a  general  up 
rising  of  the  negroes,  who  would  lay  waste  the  South,  make 
a  general  irruption  into  the  free  states,  put  down  the  wages 
of  our  poor  whites,  and  finally  marry  them. 

None  of  these  prophesies  ever  came  true,  and  yet  the  ene 
mies  of  progress  have  never  found  it  out,  and  never  will. 
They  still  "shiver  and  shrink  at  the  sight  of  trial  and  haz 
ard."  They  still  believe  in  the  omnipotence  of  evil,  and  for 
get  that  the  very  heavens  are  built  upon  justice.  They  still 
reject  the  faith  which  even  a  reputed  Pagan  proclaims,  that 
"  the  great  soul  of  the  World  is  just,"  and  that  there  is  "  one 
strong  thing  here  below,  the  just  thing,  the  true  thing."  They 
are  still  prophesying  that  ruin  and  disaster  will  follow  in  the 
footsteps  of  duty,  and  their  children  will  doubtless  take  up 
the  trade  when  they  are  ready  to  lay  it  down,  while  all  his 
tory  bears  witness  that  loyalty  to  principle  is  safety,  and  truth 
the  only  sure  lamp  to  our  feet. 

In  the  light  of  what  I  have  said,  it  can  scarcely  be  neces 
sary  to  notice  the  hackneyed  plea  that  women  generally  do 
not  desire  the  ballot.  I  only  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that 
a  very  respectable  minority  does  desire  it,  and  that  if  the  ar 
gument  I  have  made  is  sound,  the  question  of  majorities  and 
minorities  can  have  nothing  whatever  to-do  with  the  issue. 
It  is  not  a  problem  of  mathematics,  but  a  claim  of  right,  and 
therefore  the  disclaimer  of  it  by  ninety-nine  hundredths  of 
the  sex  could  not  affect  the  right  of  the  remainder. 

In  the  next  place,  this  minority  includes  many  earnest 
and  highly  gifted  women  who  have  given  the  subject  much 
thought,  and  whose  declared  reasons  for  their  position  have 
only  been  answered  by  "the  gospel  of  ridicule."  On  the 
other  hand,  the  position  of  the  majority  is  that  of  indifference, 
rather  than  hostility,  and  results  largely  from  inattention  and 
lack  of  thought.  The  mass  of  the  slaves  of  the  South  were 
so  accustomed  to  their  lot  that  they  gave  no  sign  of  discon 
tent  ;  but  Frederick  Douglas  and  scores  of  others  ran  away 
from  their  masters,  and  denounced  the  whole  system  of  op- 


78  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

pression  as  an  outrage  apon  humanity  and  a  crime  against 
God.  The  world  has  accepted  their  testimony,  and  rejected 
the  negative  evidence  of  the  great  majority,  whose  very  con- 
tentedness  with  their  condition  was  itself  the  strongest  con 
demnation  of  their  enslavement. 

In  the  third  place,  this  minority  is  rapidly  growing.  It 
is  already  quite  as  large  as  minorities  usually  are  in  the  early 
stages  of  a  reform.  A  great  cause  never  musters  a  majority 
in  its  beginning,  and  does  not  need  it.  It  has  the  truth  on 
its  side,  and  that  never  fails  to  prove  all-sufficient.  The 
cause  of  woman's  enfranchisement  is  so  woven  into  the  logic 
of  progress  and  the  spirit  of  the  age  that  its  failure  is  impos 
sible.  It  is  coming,  in  the  language  of  Colonel  Higginson, 
as  "  a  part  of  the  succession  of  civilizations.''  It  is  coming 
as  the  final  product  and  ripe  fruit  of  democratic  institutions. 
It  is  coming  in  obedience  to  the  law  which  has  made  the 
progress  of  society  and  the  elevation  of  woman  go  hand  in 
hand  in  the  past.  It  is  coming  through  the  principle  of  so 
cial  evolution  which  has  made  the  condition  of  woman  con 
stantly  approach  that  of  equality  with  man  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  It  is  coming  in  response  to  the  spirit  of  human 
ity  which  centuries  ago  swept  away  the  code  which  gave 
woman  in  marriage  without  her  consent  and  made  her  the 
chattel  slave  of  her  husband,  who  could  exercise  over  her  the 
power  of  life  and  death  ;  while  that  same  spirit  is  now  reform 
ing  and  humanizing  our  laws  respecting  her  personal  and 
property  rights,  enlarging  the  sphere  of  her  occupations,  in 
creasing  her  wages,  and  promoting  her  higher  education.  Its 
enemies  may  throw  obstacles  in  its  way,  and  distress  them 
selves  by  the  childish  dread  of  consequences,  but  they  will 
be  as  powerless  to  defeat  it  as  to  stay  the  tides  of  the  sea. 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM. 


DELIVERED  AT  AN  ANTI-SLAVERY  REUNION  IN  GREENSBORO, 
ON  THE  I4TH  OF  OCTOBER,  1875. 


[This  speech  was  also  delivered  before  the  literary  societies  of  the  North 
western  Christian  University,  on  the  22d  of  February,  1876,  and  at  Watkins, 
New  York,  in  the  latter  part  of  August,  1878.  In  September  following,  it  ap 
peared  as  an  article  in  the  North  American  Review,  under  the  title,  "Is  the  Re 
former  Any  Longer  Needed?"]  « 

Fellow- Citizens:  The  philosophy  of  evolution,  as  applied 
to  the  problems  of  the  physical  world,  is  rapidly  winning  the 
victory  over  all  opposition.  Resting  upon  the  sure  founda 
tion  of  known  facts  and  necessary  inductions,  it  has  little  to 
fear  from  the  assaults  of  mere  declamation,  or  the  unbeliev 
ing  conservatism  which  sees  only  danger  and  disaster  in 
courageously  following  the  truth.  But  the  attempt  of  some 
of  the  chief  apostles  of  this  philosophy  to  apply  its  teachings 
literally  in  the  domain  of  morals  and  politics  involves  con 
siderations  of  very  grave  moment  to  the  cause  of  social  prog 
ress.  They  tell  us  that  society  is  not  a  manufacture,  but  a 
growth  :  and  that  civilization,  therefore,  is  not  an  artificial 
thing,  but  a  part  of  Nature — of  a  piece  with  the  development 
of  the  embryo,  or  the  unfolding  of  a  flower.  Manufacturing 
morals,  we  are  told,  is  as  unscientific  as  manufacturing 
worlds  ;  while  social  progress  is  to  be  wrought  out  by  grad 
ual  development,  and  not  by  spasms  of  philanthropy  or  sud 
den  outbreaks  of  reform.  It  is  not  an  accident,  but  a  neces 
sity,  and  therefore  all  special  reforms  are  to  be  superseded 
by  social  evolution.  The  Clarksons  and  Wilberforces  of  a 
past  generation  must  give  place  to  the  Spencers  and  Bage- 
hots  of  the  present,  and  thus  usher  in  a  new  dispensation  in 


8O  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

the  history  of  the  race.  According  to  Herbert  Spencer,  no 
teaching  or  policy  can  advance  the  work  of  social  develop 
ment  beyond  a  certain  normal  rate,  while  it  is  quite  possible 
to  perturb,  to  retard,  or  to  disorder  the  process  ;  and,  by 
maintaining  favorable  conditions,  there  can  not  be  more  good 
done  than  by  letting  social  progress  go  on  unhindered,  while 
an  immensitv  of  mischief  may  be  done  in  the  way  of  disturbing 
and  distorting  and  repressing,  by  policies  carried  out  in  pur 
suit  of  erroneous  conceptions.  The  growth  of  society  is 
thus  analogous  to  the  growth  of  an  animal,  or  a  plant,  pro 
ceeding  in  a  predetermined  order  under  the  influence  of 
causes  which  act  spontaneously  and  in  perfect  harmony  with 
all  cosmical  development. 

A  very  high  authority  on  moral  and  social  questions, 
catching  the  spirit  of  these  ideas,  traces  a  great  portion  of  ex 
isting  evils  to  benevolent  interferences  for  their  removal.  He 
asserts  that  in  this  world  a  large  part  of  the  business  of  the 
wise  is  to  counteract  the  efforts  of  the  good,  and  that  those 
only  can  safely  and  serviceably  encounter  social  evils  who 
can  both  watch  and  in  some  measure  imitate  God's  mode  of 
dealing  with  them.  He  tells  us  that  the  coldest  tempers  are 
generally,  in  matters  of  philanthropy,  the  soundest  thinkers 
and  safest  guides  and  administrators,  and  that  a  tender 
hearted  statesman  is  almost  more  to  be  dreaded  than  a  despot 
or  an  adventurer ;  while,  to  be  worthy  and  efficient  coadju 
tors  with  God  on  the  great  arena  of  the  world,  we  must  be 
able  to  borrow  some  of  the  sublime,  impassive  calm  with 
which,  age  after  age,  he  has  looked  down  upon  the  slow  pro 
gress  and  lingering  miseries  of  his  children.  The  motto  of 
the  social  evolutionist  is,  "  Slow  and  sure  ;  "  and  he  exhorts 
us,  as  far  as  possible,  to  eliminate  the  time  element  from  our 
reckoning  of  human  progress,  and  imitate  nature  in  her  in 
finite  patience  in  waiting  so  long  for  the  physical  world  to 
grow  into  decent  and  comely  shape.  With  him  human  en 
deavors  for  ameliorating  the  condition  of  humanity  are,  of 
course,  hindrances  rather  than  helps,  and  the  refoimer  is  to 
be  regarded  as  representing  a  type  of  mind  no  longer  needed, 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  8 1 

and  as  destined  soon  to  disappear  under  the  law  of  the  sur 
vival  of  the  fittest.  Like  the  mastodon,  the  dodo,  and  other 
creations  of  the  past,  he  will  become  extinct,  and  we  shall 
patiently  and  placidly  look  on  while  social  evolution  does  the 
work  which  his  ignorance  and  fanaticism  so  clumsily  at 
tempted  in  a  ruder  and  less  advanced  stage  of  society. 

This  new  gospel  demands  our  attention.  It  makes  its 
appeal  in  the  name  of  science,  and  it  has  the  support  of  great 
names.  Its  teaching  is  plausible,  and  it  embodies  a  measure 
of  truth.  It  is  remarkably  solacing  to  a  certain  order  of 
minds,  and  we  believe  multitudes  will  be  tempted  to  embrace 
it  as  a  welcome  scapegoat  for  their  laziness  or  moral  indiffer 
ence.  It  arraigns  all  the  great  reforms  of  the  world,  and 
would  substitute  a  sickly  moral  fatalism  for  those  deeds  of 
heroism  and  self-sacrifice  which  have  glorified  human  nature 
and  lighted  the  world  on  its  way  to  higher  truth.  Let  us 
briefly  consider  it. 

The  fallacies  on  which  it  rests  are  not  difficult  to  discover. 
In  the  first  place,  it  assumes  the  existence  of  an  obviously 
false  and  impossible  analogy.  When  we  are  exhorted  to  im 
itate  God's  mode  of  dealing  with  social  evils,  and  to  become 
coadjutors  with  him  by  borrowing  his  sublime  patience,  it 
may  be  well  to  remember  that  we  are  not  gods,  but  human 
beings,  very  limited  in  our  knowledge  and  circumscribed  in 
our  sphere  of  action.  The  folly  of  the  suggestion  that  we 
should  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  Creator,  in  order  that 
we  may  have  wise  and  comprehensive'  views  of  our  duties  to 
our  fellow-creatures,  is  only  equaled  by  its  sublime  effront 
ery.  Whoever  believes  in  a  Supreme  Intelligence  must  be 
lieve  that  he  sees  the  end  from  the  beginning.  The  universe 
is  his  expression  and  breath.  All  its  parts  and  appointments 
are  the  fruit  of  his  infinite  wisdom,  and  are  seen  to  work  to 
gether  for  good.  What  is  hidden  and  inscrutable  to  us  must 
be  to  him  as  transparent  as  light,  and  in  perfect  accord  with 
justice,  mercy,  and  truth.  To  talk  about  the  patience  of  the 
Deity,  therefore,  is  to  apply  the  vocabulary  of  mortals  to  a 
Being  who  infinitely  surpasses  our  comprehension.  Patience 
6 


82  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

is  a  human  virtue,  implying  weakness  and  imperfection.  It 
means  enduring,  suffering  with  meekness,  sustaining  pains 
and  trials  without  murmuring  or  fretfulness,  bearing  trouble 
with  equanimity.  This  can  not  be  predicated  of  God,  whose 
very  attributes  must  make  him  impassive  in  surveying  the 
work  of  his  hands.  And  even  this  human  virtue  is  only  en 
joined  upon  us  in  encountering  evils  which  are  unavoidable  ; 
for,  if  we  have  the  power  to  remove  them,  our  patience  under 
their  burden  ceases  to  be  a  virtue,  if  it  does  not  become  a 
vice. 

Equally  irrational  is  the  notion  that  we  may  become  God 
like  by  eliminating  the  element  of  time  in  dealing  with  the 
evils  of  society.  We  have  no  right  to  break  away  from  those 
limitations  which  make  us  what  we  are,  and  we  have  no  more 
power  to  do  so  than  we  have  to  add  to  our  stature  by  taking 
thought.  With  our  Creator,  as  we  are  told  and  believe,  the 
universe  is  "an  everlasting  Now;"  but  with  us  the  little 
fragment  of  time  which  rounds  out  our  life  is  simply  the  gate 
way  of  duty  and  toil.  It  is  our  providential  opportunity,  into 
which  we  should  crowd  every  beneficent  activity  which  an 
unselfish  devotion  to  truth  and  humanity  can  kindle.  We  can 
not,  therefore,  become  coadjutors  with  our  Maker  by  folding 
our  hands  and  waiting  upon  evolution,  or  the  cold  logic  of 
events,  but  by  acting  well  our  appointed  part  in  the  fleeting 
drama  of  life — by  plunging  into  the  strifes  and  struggles  of 
our  time,  and  wisely  but  fervently  toiling  for  our  kind.  These 
•strifes  and  struggles  afford  ample  scope  for  our  powers,  and 
we  have  no  right  to  shirk  the  task  to  which  we  are  sum 
moned.  Evolution  is  God's  method  of  operating  in  the  natu 
ral  world,  and,  in  a  qualified  sense,  in  the  moral ;  but  it  can 
perform  no  vicarious  office  for  us  as  intelligent  beings  en 
dowed  with  a  conscience,  who  must  work  out  our  own  sal 
vation.  It  can  not  supersede  the  strivings  and  sacrifices  of 
good  men  for  the  race.  It  can  not  cancel  our  social  obliga 
tions  by  eloquent  talk  about  gradual  development  and  com 
prehensive  views.  It  can  not  cure  the  ills  of  society  by  as 
suring  us  that  progress  is  a  necessity,  and  that,  while  we  may 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  83 

cripple  and  retard  social  development,  we  have  no  power  to 
aid  it.  It  can  not  strengthen  the  hands  of  struggling  virtue, 
or  increase  our  reverence  for  our  Maker,  by  reminding  us  of 
his  unruffled  serenity  in  looking  down  upon  the  tardy  pro 
gress  and  lingering  miseries  of  his  children.  It  can  not 
bring  reproach  and  derision  upon  the  world's  great  reforms 
and  reformers  without  a  corresponding  blight  and  paralysis 
of  the  world's  faith  in  goodness.  It  can  not  reform  society 
by  proclaiming  abstract  theories  of  progress,  while  those  who 
would  smite  social  evils  in  their  concrete  form  are  branded 
as  fanatics  and  men  of  "  one  idea."  It  can  not  save  the 
world  through  the  leadership  of  men  who  boast  of  their  philo 
sophic  principles,  and  their  patience  under  the  troubles  and 
sorrows  of  their  fellow-creatures.  It  can  not  establish  its 
doctrine  of  scientific  fatalism  without  sapping  the  very 
foundation  of  morals.  Every  civilized  commuru'ty  is  scourged 
by  some  devouring  evil,  which  invites  the  organized  resistance 
of  good  men.  Through  their  agency  the  work  of  social  evo 
lution  goes  forward,  and  they  are  without  excuse  if  they  fail 
to  put  forth  their  endeavors.  The  shortness  of  life  and  the 
feebleness  of  our  powers  make  the  time-element  in  our  reck 
oning  of  progress  all  the  more  vital.  They  should  render  us 
not  more  but  less  patient  in  dealing  with  curable  social  ills. 
They  should  incite  us  to  lavish  our  efforts  in  the  service  of 
humanity,  instead  of  stingily  withholding  them,  and  waiting 
supinely  for  evolution  to  take  up  our  task.  They  should 
teach  us  to  capitalize  our  philanthropy  to  the  utmost,  and 
fund  it  freely  in  deeds  of  active  beneficence.  Any  one  of 
the  reforms  of  our  day  is  large  enough  to  tax  the  best  ener 
gies  of  our  strongest  men,  and  all  of  them  must  lag  and  lan 
guish  if,  instead  of  looking  to  partial  and  immediate  results 
through  our  personal  exertions,  we  commit  the  solution  of 
social  problems  to  the  working  of  inevitable  laws. 

But  I  observe,  in  the  next  place,  that  the  central  idea  of 
this  new  philosophy  is  fallacious.  It  is  not  contended  that 
the  forces  which  rule  society  naturally  gravitate  in  the  direc 
tion  of  evil,  nor  is  it  denied  that  their  tendency  as  in  the 


84  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

case  of  individual  men,  is  toward  improved  conditions.  If 
this  were  not  true,  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  a  science 
of  history,  and  the  moral  world  would  be  the  sport  of 
chance.  I  accept  Mr.  Bagehot's  general  idea  of  a  philoso 
phy  of  progress,  which  he  so  skillfully  labors  to  enforce  and 
illustrate;  but  Mr.  Bagehot  himself  asserts  that  "the  prog 
ress  of  man  requires  the  cooperation  of  men  for  its  develop 
ment/'  It  is  not  true  that  the  process  of  civilization  is  a  part 
of  nature,  like  the  unfolding  of  a  flower.  It  is  not  true  that 
social  progress  goes  on  as  a  necessity,  according  to  any  in 
variable  law.  It  is  not  true  that  laws  and  institutions  grow, 
in  the  sense  in  which  we  speak  of  the  growth  of  plants  and 
animals.  If  these  premises  were  valid,  Mr.  Spencer  would 
undoubtedly  be  right  in  declaring  that,  while  we  can  retard 
or  disorder  the  process  of  social  development,  we  can  do 
nothing  whatever  to  advance  it.  But  the  fact  is  that,  while 
the  process  of  development  in  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms  is  achieved  indirectly  and  unintentionally,  social 
evolution  is  chieflv  the  result  of  efforts  consciously  put  forth 
for  the  purpose.  To  a  very  large  extent  communities,  like 
individuals,  are  the  architects  of  their  own  fortunes.  Evolu 
tion  is  ever  at  work  ;  but  whether  it  takes  a  forward  or  retro 
grade  course  must  depend  largely  upon  the  voluntary  action 
of  the  people,  or  of  their  recognized  leaders,  in  adopting  or 
rejecting  particular  laws  or  policies.  Prof.  Cairnes,  in  an 
article  written  a  few  years  ago,  combating  the  views  of  Mr. 
Spencer,  proves  from  the  highest  critical  and  historical  au 
thority  that  the  stationary  condition  of  the  race  is  the  rule 
and  the  progressive  the  exception,  and  that  the  greater  part 
of  mankind  has  never  shown  the  least  desire  that  its  civil 
institutions  should  be  improved.  He  shows  that  on  this 
ground,  and  not  according  to  any  theory  of  social  evolution, 
we  must  account  for  the  retrograde  course  of  certain  nations 
after  they  have  reached  an  advanced  stage  of  civilization  ; 
and  he  makes  the  apt  quotation  from  Mr.  Mill,  that  "  politi 
cal  institutions  are  the  work  of  men  ;  owe  their  origin  and 
existence  to  human  will.  Men  did  not  wake  on  a  summer 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  85 

morning  and  find  them  sprung  up.  Neither  do  they  resem 
ble  trees,  which,  once  planted,  are  aye  growing  while  men 
are  sleeping.  In  every  stage  of  their  existence  they  are 
made  what  they  are  by  human  voluntary  agency."  And  this 
reasoning  is  justified  by  historical  facts  which  he  adduces. 
Rome  was  incalculably  indebted  for  her  later  pre-eminence  to 
the  fortunate  and  timely  adoption  of  her  early  code  of  laws. 
Her  decline  and  ruin  resulted  from  the  decay  of  her  yeo 
manry  and  her  vast  landed  estates.  The  paternal  despotism 
of  China  carried  her  up  to  the  civilization  she  has  attained, 
but  is  a  most  formidable  barrier  to  further  progress.  The 
absolute  monarchy  of  the  Jews  produced  different  results, 
because  they  had  a  peculiar  body  of  men  called  prophets, 
the  patriots  and  guides  of  their  time,  who  were  able  to  with 
stand  the  power  of  kings  and  priests.  Not  upon  any  invari 
able  law,  therefore,  working  in  the  direction  of  good  or  evil, 
but  upon  human  agency,  must  the  fortunes  of  states  greatly 
depend.  The  right  does  not  always  come  uppermost  in  the 
concerns  of  this  world.  The  truth  is  often  put  down  by 
falsehood  and  force.  In  his  famous  essay  on  "Liberty,'* 
Mr.  Mill  says  Christianity  itself  only  became  predominant 
because  the  persecutions  of  its  enemies  were  occasional,  and 
separated  by  long  intervals  of  propagandism.  Injustice  is 
not  an  appointed  necessity,  but  neither  is  justice  strong 
enough  to  win  in  her  ever-recurring  conflict  with  the  powers 
of  evil  without  the  help  of  faithful  and  heroic  men.  "  We 
ought  not  to  forget  that  there  is  an  incessant  and  ever-flow 
ing  current  toward  the  worse,  consisting  of  all  the  follies,  all 
the  vices,  all  the  negligences,  indolences,  and  supinenesses 
of  mankind,  which  is  only  controlled  and  kept  from  sweep 
ing  all  before  it  by  the  exertions  which  some  persons  con 
stantly,  and  others  by  fits,  put  forth  in  the  direction  of  good 
and  worthy  objects."  This  confession  of  faith  of  John  Stu 
art  Mill,  with  which  Prof.  Cairnes  enforces  his  argument, 
was  the  key-note  of  his  life  ;  and  whoever  thoroughly  accepts 
it  as  the  inspiration  of  his  labors  will  be  ready  to' work  for 
humanity  as  if  the  fortunes  of  the  world  depended  on  his  per- 


86 


SELECTED    SPEECHES. 


sonal  endeavors.  The  fortunes  of  the  world,  indeed,  to  a 
large  extent,  have  depended  upon  the  toils  and  struggles  of 
just  such  men  ;  while  those  who  have  looked  on  in  indiffer 
ence,  or  opposed  all  efforts  at  reform  because  they  believed 
it  wiser  "to  let  social  progress  go  on  unhindered,"  have  left 
the  world  little  better  than  they  found  it,  if  they  have  not 
been  positive  obstructions  to  human  welfare. 

Who  can  look  back  upon  the  great  reforms  of  the  world, 
and  pronounce  them  so  many  ill-fated  struggles  to  better  its 
condition  which  only  deflected  the  path  of  progress  from  its 
true  course?  Who  can  gainsay  the  grand  lesson  of  history 
so  beautifully  stated  by  Mr.  Motley,  that  "the  generation 
that  plants  is  not  the  generation  that  gathers  in  the  harvest, 
but  all  mankind  at  last  inherit  what  is  sown  in  the  blood  and 
tears  of  a  few  "  ?  Who,  that  is  not  the  slave  of  mere  theories, 
would  discrown  the  martyrs  whose  blood  has  been  the  seed 
of  the  church?  Who  would  dishonor  the  apostles  and  proph 
ets  of  free  thought  in  every  age  who  have  blazed  the  way  of 
progress  for  the  race,  and  made  our  present  civilization  pos 
sible?  Mr.  Buckle  affirms  that  Adam  Smith's  "Wealth  of 
Nations''  has  contributed  more  to  the  happiness  of  man  than 
has  been  effected  by  the  united  abilities  of  all  the  statesmen 
and  legislators  of  whom  history  has  preserved  an  authentic 
account.  The  age  we  live  in  is  what  we  find  it  because  of 
the  labors  and  sacrifices  of  all  the  great  souls  of  the  past. 
If  progress  has  been  evolved,  it  has  also  quite  as  certainly 
been  propagated.  It  is  not  simply  the  product  of  law,  but 
the  fruit  of  human  toil  and  sacrifice,  voluntarily  embraced 
for  the  improvement  and  regeneration  of  mankind.  Our 
churches,  our  educational  institutions,  our  organized  chari 
ties,  our  scientific  associations,  our  various  special  reforms, 
and  that  marvelous  instrumentality  called  the  press,  are  all 
so  many  testimonies  to  the  power  of  voluntary  efforts  pur 
posely  employed  in  the  furtherance  of  human  well-being, 
and  so  many  practical  refutations  of  the  theory  that  social 
development  is  dwarfed  and  deformed  by  attempts  to  im 
prove  it. 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  87 

But  the  new  doctrine  is  not  only  fallacious,  but  necessarily 
demoralizing.  This  is  implied  in  what  I  have  already  said, 
but  it  needs  to  be  particularly  emphasized.  It  unavoidably 
results  from  the  principle  that  social  development,  while  it 
may  be  hindered  or  deranged,  can  not  be  artificially  bet 
tered.  Mr.  Spencer  says  this  doctrine  "is  calculated  to 
have  a  steadying  effect  on  thought  and  action."  It  can  not 
fail  to  produce  a  paralyzing  effect.  He  admits  that  sanguine 
reformers  will  feel  that  it  takes  away  "  much  of  the  stimulus 
to  exertion  ;"  and  he  asks,  "  If  large  advances  in  human 
welfare  can  come  only  in  the  slow  process  of  things,,  which 
will  inevitably  bring  them,  why  should  we  trouble  ourselves?" 
This  staggering  question  he  answers  by  saying  that  "on  vis 
ionary  hopes,  rational  criticisms  have  a  depressing  influence," 
but  that  "it  is  better  to  recognize  the  truth."  The  truth 
which  he  thus  frankly  counsels  us  to  recognize  is  the  fatalism 
of  his  theory  of  development,  and  the  consequent  helpless 
ness  of  humanity  to  speed  its  social  advancement.  Accord 
ing  to  this  doctrine  the  reformer  is  not  simply  a  fanatic,  but  a 
social  nuisance.  He  is  a  benevolent  intermeddler  with  a 
process  which  may  be  marred,  but  can  not  be  mended  ;  and 
the  business  of  wise  and  sober  men  is  to  counteract  his  mis 
chief.  The  philanthropist  must  surrender  his  vocation,  and 
his  dreams  of  human  amelioration,  to  men  of  cold  tempers 
and  comprehensive  views.  The  patriot,  who  pictures  to 
himself  a  possible  future  of  renovated  institutions  and  a  re 
generated  state,  and  burns  with  the  longing  to  realize  his 
aspirations,  must  be  put  under  the  training  of  Science,  while 
Evolution  is  to  have  free  course  and  be  glorified. 

The  effect  of  these  teachings,  if  generally  accepted,  can 
not  be  doubtful.  Unquestionably,  the  fanaticism  so  com 
monly  found  in  alliance  with  reformatory  movements,  has 
wrought  much  mischief.  No  one  will  dispute  this.  Fanati 
cism  is  the  epidemic  of  our  times,  whether  it  shows  itself  in 
special  reforms,  in  politics,  in  religion,  or  in  trade.  It  seems 
to  be  inseparable  from  human  affairs,  and  especially  all  high 
endeavors.  It  certainly  has  its  uses,  nor  is  it  easy  to  see 


88 


SELECTED    SPEECHES. 


how  the  race  could  have  advanced  without  it.  Worldly  pru 
dence  and  calculation  are  not  the  highest  virtues,  nor  the 
chief  mainsprings  of  human  progress.  They  are  honored  by 
the  selfish  and  the  time-serving  quite  as  sincerely  as  by  the 
worthier  classes  in  society.  The  reformer  often  finds  them 
the  cousins-german  of  cowardice,  and  the  most  formidable 
foes  of  that  disinterestedness  which  animates  his  labors.  The 
philosopher,  too,  with  his  broad  views  and  many-sided  tend 
encies,  will  decline  to  follow  him.  He  loves. the  truth,  and 
sincerely  dedicates  himself  to  its  service,  but  is  not  ready  to 
bear  witness  to  it  by  great  personal  sacrifices.  He  doubts 
as  much  as  he  believes,  and  has  no  taste  for  any  kind  of 
martyrdom.  One  of  the  foremost  writers  and  thinkers  of  our 
time  tells  us  that  profound  thought,  if  thoroughly  honest  and 
conscientious,  is  deplorably  apt  to  sap  the  foundations  and 
impair  the  strength  of  our  moral  as  well  as  intellectual  con 
victions.  The  thinkers  of  the  world  are  not  its  saviors. 
4 'The  tree  of  knowledge  is  not  that  of  life."  "Enthusiasm," 
says  Emerson,  "is  the  leaping  lightning,  not  to  be  measured 
by  the  horse-power  of  the  understanding."  The  truth  is, 
that  real  social  progress  is  always  accomplished  by  imper 
fectly  aspiring  toward  a  perfect  ideal  ;  and  in  this  work  the 
faculty  of  imagination  has  the  chief  share.  It  has  been  well 
said  that  if  you  destroy  this  faculty  the  condition  of  man  will 
become  as  stationary  as  that  of  the  brutes.  Without  the 
fanaticism  of  self-sacrifice  which  the  imagination  kindles, 
our  civilization  would  be  hopelessly  dwarfed  and  mutilated. 
The  fanaticism  of  the  early  Christians  was  the  soil  in 
which  their  faith  took  root ;  and  the  simple  and  sublime  doc 
trines  of  the  new  religion,  which  now  bear  witness  to  its 
truth,  were  floated  down  the  centuries  on  the  errors  and  mis 
conceptions  of  its  disciples.  Without  the  impelling  fanati 
cism  of  Luther  and  his  collaborators,  their  battle  against 
Rome  would  never  have  been  fought.  The  founder  of 
Quakerism  paid  little  heed  to  the  canons  of  worldly  wisdom, 
while  the  fanaticism  of  John  Woolman  purged  the  Society  of 
Friends  of  the  guilt  of  slavery,  and  waked  such  a  response 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  89 

in  other  humane  hearts,  in  the  Old  World  and  the  New,  that 
the  way  was  thus  opened  for  emancipation  in  the  British 
West  India  Islands,  and  the  ultimate  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  United  States.  It  was  the  fanaticism  of  Daniel  O'Con- 
nel  which  achieved  Catholic  emancipation,  and  made  Ire 
land  a  nation.  When  he  began  his  agitation  nothing  could 
have  seemed  more  utterly  and  hopelessly  impossible,  accord 
ing  to  all  human  calculation  ;  but  his  soul  was  so  burdened 
with  the  accumulated  sorrows  of  his  country,  which  his 
matchless  eloquence  set  to  music,  that  he  became  the  libera 
tor  of  Ireland  by  thus  multiplying  himself  among  his  people. 
It  was  the  fanaticism  of  reform  which  repealed  the  English 
Corn  Laws,  in  opposition  to  the  statesmanship,  the  public 
opinion,  and  the  educated  classes  of  the  times.  If  Garrison 
and  his  associates  had  taken  counsel  of  the  wise  and  sober 
men  of  America,  who  could  see  only  failure  and  disaster  in 
the  anti-slavery  agitation,  the  world-famous  crusade  of  the 
abolitionists  would  never  have  been  heard  of,  and  the  South 
ern  negro  would  have  been  turned  over  to  the  "slow  and 
sure"  account  of  social  evolution,  through  which  "the  sum 
of  all  villainies"  would  have  been  planted  in  every  Northern 
State.  It  was  the  fanaticism  of  our  fathers  a  century  ago 
which  achieved  American  independence  ;  for  no  unimpas- 
sioned  judgment  of  their  undertaking  could  have  given 
strength  to  their  hopes.  The  chances  of  success  were  in  fact 
overwhelmingly  against  them.  Of  one  thing  only  were  they 
sure,  and  that  was,  that  England  had  no  right  to  bind  them 
by  laws  in  the  making  of  which  they  were  denied  any  share, 
and  that  they  were  ready,  if  need  be,  to  offer  their  lives  as 
hostages  to  liberty.  Out  of  the  fanaticism  of  Fourier,  St. 
Simon  and  Robert  Owen  has  come  the  organized  struggle  of 
labor  which  is  now  troubling  the  dreams  of  despots,  compell 
ing  capital  to  respect  it  by  its  harsh  machinery  of  strikes  and 
trades  unions,  and  at  the  same  time  opening  the  way  for  the 
just  and  saving  principle  of  co-operation.  Christianity  itself, 
the  great  seed-plot  of  reform,  is  the  farthest  thing  possible 
from  a  system  of  logic,  nor  "was  it  accomplished  by  prize- 


Cp  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

essays,  Bridgewater  bequests,  and  a  minimum  of  four  thou 
sand  five  hundred  a  year."  To  the  Jews  it  was  a  stumbling- 
block,  and  to  the  Greeks  foolishness  ;  and  its  doctrine  of 
perfect  self-renunciation  fares  little  better  with  the  philoso 
phers  and  scientists  of  to-day. 

Indeed,  if  reforms  were  to  be  left  to  thinkers  and  scholars, 
and  the  wise  and  prudent,  they  would  never  be  undertaken 
at  all.  The  grandest  efforts  of  heroic  virtue  can  only  be  in 
spired  by  that  supreme  devotion  to  a  holy  cause  which 
amounts  to  a  fascination,  and  nothing  less  than  this  can  call 
forth  the  enduring  admiration  and  perfect  love  of  mankind. 
This  truth  is  illustrated  in  the  lives  of  all  the  world's  great 
martyrs  to  liberty  and  high  priests  of  reform.  If  no  hazards 
are  to  be  braved,  nothing  will  be  attempted.  None  of  the 
great  agitations  of  the  world  could  have  passed  muster  if 
they  had  been  compelled  in  advance  to  go  to  trial  on  a  cool 
calculation  of  the  chances  of  success  and  the  sacrifices  in 
volved.  The  reformer  feels  that  if  he  would  save  his  life  he 
must  be  ready  to  lose  it.  He  sees  the  particular  cause  he 
espouses  with  such  vividness,  from  his  mount  of  vision,  and 
embraces  it  with  such  unreserved  ardor,  that  its  service  is 
accepted  as  a  divine  command.  The  light  which  points  his 
way  casts  all  else  into  the  shade.  The  fire  within  him  con 
sumes  every  doubt  and  fear  which  could  beset  the  path  of  a 
cautious  and  considerate  man.  He  accepts  the  philosophy 
embodied  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  motto  of  ;'one  war  at  a  time." 
If  his  mind  were  large  enough  to  see  all  reforms  in  their 
just  relationships,  and  coolly  and  impartially  to  estimate  their 
real  value  and  the  difficulties  of  success,  he  would  probably 
espouse  none  of  them.  The  task  would  seem  too  large,  and 
he  would  lack  that  intensity  of  conviction  and  concentration 
of  zeal  which  alone  could  inspire  the  needed  courage  and 
self-forgetfulness.  The  very  one-sidedness  of  reformers, 
their  readiness  to  die  for  what  they  believe  to  be  the  truth, 
and  that  element  of  exaggeration  which  so  often  enters  into 
their  conceptions,  thus  become  providential  disguises,  for 
which  the  world  has  reason  to  return  thanks.  Unquestion- 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  9! 

ably,  prudence  and  common  sense  are  qualities  which  can 
not  be  prized  too  highly  in  the  ordinary  concerns  of  life. 
Science  and  philosophy  have  also  their  sovereign  value,  and 
have  rendered  inestimable  service  in  checking  the  excesses 
and  extravagance  of  reform  ;  but  the  theory  which  would 
substitute  social  evolution  for  individual  and  organized  efforts 
to  improve  society,  would  take  the  poetry  out  of  life  and  re 
duce  humanity  itself  to  a  machine.  It  strikes  a  deadly  blow 
at  personal  responsibility,  and  belittles  human  character, 
which  is  above  all  price.  It  lays  its  benumbing  hand  upon 
the  divinest  charities  and  sweetest  humanities  of  the  world, 
and  pours  contempt  upon  the  sublimest  displays  of  exalted 
virtue  with  which  the  history  of  the  race  has  made  us  ac 
quainted. 

Nor  is  it  any  answer  to  the  views  we  have  presented  to 
say  that  special  reforms  served  their  turn  as  a  provisional 
necessity,  before  the  principle  of  social  evolution  was  discov 
ered,  but  are  now  to  be  thrust  aside  as  the  outgrown  gar 
ments  of  childhood.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  there  never 
was  a  time  when  signal  efforts  and  sacrifices  for  human  wel 
fare  were  more  urgently  demanded  than  now.  The  social 
progress  already  achieved  only  points  the  way  to  new  duties 
and  wider  fields  of  labor.  The  discussion  and  settlement  of 
one  question  only  reveals  its  relations  to  others,  which  logi 
cally  follow.  In  the  remote  future  a  time  may  come,  through 
the  toils  and  struggles  of  humanity,  when  the  work  of  reform 
will  end  in  universal  conformity  to  the  moral  law  ;  but  that 
millenial  day  is  rather  too  far  off  to  vex  us  with  its  interests. 
Our  duty  is  with  "  the  living  present ;"  and  who  believes  it 
safe  to  hand  over  the  great  problems  of  society  to-day  to  the 
cold  and  relentless  law  of  development?  Look,  for  exam 
ple,  at  our  current  politics.  The  issues  which  divide  our 
great  parties  are  as  undiscoverable  as  they  were  in  the  year 
1852.  Neither  of  them  dares  face  the  real  questions  which 
most  deeply  concern  the  people,  and  upon  which,  alone, 
party  organizations  can  be  justified.  Respecting  the  vital 
questions  of  finance  and  the  tariff,  each  agrees  that  in  par- 


92  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

ticular  states  and  congressional  districts  its  leaders  may  pro 
claim  such  doctrines  as  will  be  most  likely  to  secure  local 
ascendency,  and  thus  to  make  its  pretended  ''principles7'  the 
foot-ball  of  party  success.  Even  their  national  platforms 
pipe  the  same  music  through  different  words.  It  has  been 
aptly  observed  that  half  the  Democrats  are  good  Republi 
cans,  and  half  the  Republicans  are  good  Democrats.  Their 
antagonisms  are  simply  a  memory  and  a  habit,  and  yet  party 
loyalty  is  intensified  just  as  the  uselessness  of  party  ma 
chinery  becomes  more  and  more  evident.  Their  heaven  is 
power,  and  each  is  striving  to  reach  it  by  despicable  make 
shifts  and  stale  appeals  to  its  traditions.  We  have  reached 
one  of  those  seasons  of  moral  stagnation  which  follow  revo 
lutionary  periods,  and  sometimes  threaten  the  very  existence 
of  free  government.  By  a  sort  of  universal  understanding, 
the  word  politics  has  become  the  synonym  of  "jockey ship." 
Its  higher  and  real  meaning  is  practically  forgotten,  if  not 
openly  laughed  at.  The  old  slavery  question  introduced 
conscience  into  our  public  affairs.  It  reached  do\vn  to  the 
very  foundations  of  government,  and  touched  the  great 
springs  of  our  national  life.  Heart  and  brain  went  forth  in 
the  glad  service  of  a  great  cause,  and  the  spirit  of  reform 
was  in  the  air.  Men  of  the  mo.st  commonplace  characters 
were  so  lifted  up  and  ennobled  by  the  struggle  th'at  the  whole 
land  seemed  ablaze  with  the  fires  of  a  moral  revolution.  We 
believe  the  hour  has  struck  for  another  revival,  and  that  it 
should  now  be  the  mission  of  the  reformer  to  rouse  the  pop 
ular  conscience  from  its  deadly  slumber,  and  inspire  the  con 
duct  of  public  affairs  with  the  great  moralities  which  dignify 
private  life.  He  should  resolve,  with  all  his  might,  to  divin 
ize  instead  of  diabolize  public  life,  and  that  the  wrord  politics 
shall  no  longer  stand  for  venality  and  pelf,  but  the  applica 
tion  of  great  and  enduring  principles  to  the  public  well-being. 
He  should  insist  that  political  knaves  and  traders  shall  be 
sent  to  the  rear,  and  their  places  supplied  by  men  who  really 
believe  in  God,  in  humanity,  and  in  rectitude.  And,  as  the 
necessary  preliminary  to  all  this,  he  should  forthwith  declare 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  93 

war  to  the  death  against  the  despotism  of  the  caucus,  and 
hail  the  independent  voter  as  the  anointed  political  Messiah 
on  whom  we  are  to  believe. 

But  some  one  may  ask  me  to  be  more  specific,  and  to 
name  some  of  the  special  reforms  which  yet  demand  atten 
tion.  One  of  them  presents  itself  in  the  financial  problem. 
To  the  present  generation,  finance  is  a  new  issue  in  Ameri 
can  politics.  It  is  altogether  unfamiliar  to  the  customary 
thought  of  the  people,  because  the  course  of  our  politics  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  steadily  turned  in  other 
directions.  The  protracted  and  absorbing  controversy  re 
specting  African  slavery  necessarily  diverted  attention  from 
economic  questions,  while  the  war  which  finally  swept  slav 
ery  away  left  in  its  track  a  paper-money  problem  scarcely 
less  fearful  than  that  of  the  rebellion  itself.  Financial  knowl 
edge  is  now  the  demand  of  the  hour,  for,  if  financial  quack 
ery  is  allowed  to  take  its  place,  national  bankruptcy  and  irre 
trievable  dishonor  may  be  the  result.  There  is  but  one  way 
out  of  our  dilemma,  and  we  shall  be  obliged  to  pursue  it, 
even  should  it  involve  as  thorough  an  overhauling  of  the 
whole  question  as  that  through  which  the  country  was  finally 
prepared  to  grapple  with  the  slavery  issue  and  to  settle  it  for 
ever.  Why  is  the  question  of  our  currency  now  involved  in 
so  hopeless  a  muddle?  Why  are  so  many  of  our  politicians, 
in  dealing  with  it,  so  fearfully  afflicted  with  mental  vertigo? 
Why  do  they  lead  us  into  such  a  wilderness  of  metaphysics, 
and  spread  before  us  such  a  famine  of  ideas?  How  shall  we 
explain  their  frequent  somersaults,  and  their  marvelous  per 
formances  in  "ground  and  lofty  tumbling?"  It  is  not  that 
the  question  is  an  inscrutable  one,  but  it  has  not  been  consid 
ered.  Until  quite  recently  it  has  not  found  its  way  into  our 
politics  at  all,  since  the  old  issue  respecting  a  national  bank 
was  settled.  What  we  need  is  a  national  education  in  the 
elements  of  financial  knowledge,  and  I  should  be  glad  to  see 
this  begin  in  our  common  schools.  Indeed,  some  of  our 
great  party  leaders  and  latter-day  statesmen  seem  to  need 
this  knowledge  quite  as  much  as  the  rank  and  file  of  the  peo- 


94  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

pie.  If  it  were  possible,  the  horn-book  of  finance  should  be 
placed  in  their  hands,  and  they  should  be  taught,  as  speedily 
as  possible,  the  definition  of  money  ;  that  something  can  not 
be  made  out  of  nothing  by  an  act  of  Congress  ;  that  real 
money  must  be  dug  out  of  the  earth,  and  can  not  be  obtained 
by  printing  any  denomination  of  it  on  paper ;  that  a  dollar  is 
a  silver  or  gold  coin  of  the  value  of  one  hundred  cents,  and 
not  any  fraction  of  this  sum,  nor  a  mere  promise  to  pay  a 
dollar,  which  can  be  discharged  by  another  promise  ;  that  a 
paper  currency,  irredeemable  in  gold  or  silver,  has  proved  a 
curse  to  every  country  that  has  tried  it,  and  that  any  scheme 
for  relieving  the  indebtedness  of  individuals  or  nations  with 
out  payment  is  a  violation  of  the  command  "Thou  shalt  not 
steal."  Undoubtedly,  many  questions  in  political  economy 
as  yet  remain  unsettled,  but  there  are  certain  elementary 
principles  of  finance  which  are  as  well  established  as  any 
facts  of  physical  science  ;  and,  if  they  had  been  well  taught 
in  our  schools,  the  men  who  are  now  preying  upon  the  pop 
ular  ignorance  and  disturbing  the  peace  of  the  country  would 
have  been  more  worthily  employed. 

The  thorough  reform  of  our  civil  service  is  another  urgent 
demand  of  the  times.  It  has  often  been  pronounced  "  the 
best  on  the  planet ;  "  but  it  is,  in  fact,  a  perfectly  shameless 
system  of  official  huckstering  and  political  prostitution.  It 
poisons  the  life-blood  of  the  body  politic.  It  places  the  power 
and  patronage  of  the  government  at  the  disposal  of  trained 
political  pickpockets,  who  make  the  very  atmosphere  me- 
phitic  with  their  familiar  vices.  It  frames  iniquity  into  law, 
and  makes  law  the  servant  of  iniquity.  It  stains  the  good 
name  of  our  country  at  home  and  abroad.  It  is  the  root  and 
source  of  the  most  startling  bribery  and  corruption,  breaking 
out  in  high  places,  and  inundating  the  whole  land  with  their 
desolating  effects.  It  robs  the  people  annually  to  the  tune  of 
millions  and  tens  of  millions,  through  its  whisky  rings,  its 
Indian  rings,  its  custom-house  rings,  its  railroad  rings,  and 
other  legalized  machinery  which  it  manipulates.  It  reduces 
rapacity  to  a  science,  and  elevates  roguery  to  the  dignity  of 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  95 

an  art.  It  has  so  polluted  our  politics  and  debauched  the 
moral  sense  of  our  public  servants  that  even  so  respectable  a 
man  as  Senator  Howe,  of  Wisconsin,  openly  defends  it,  and 
actually  refers  to  the  saturnalia  of  thieves  who  defied  the 
country  under  the  two  administrations  of  General  Grant  as  a 
proof  of  the  honesty  of  his  party.  The  sovereign  remedy  for 
all  this  is  the  destruction,  root  and  branch,  of  the  whole  sys 
tem  of  spoils  and  plunder  ;  and  this  will  require  the  bold  sur 
gery  of  reform.  It  calls  for  an  insurrection  of  honest  men 
against  the  disciplined  party  of  Janizaries  who  have  so  long 
ruled  them.  Neither  Congress  nor  the  executive  depart 
ment  of  the  government  will  take  a  single  step  until  com 
pelled  to  do  so  by  public  opinion.  We  can  no  more  depend 
upon  our  parties  and  politicians  to  begin  the  work  than  we 
can  trust  the  dram-shops  of  the  country  to  organize  against 
their  traffic.  If  any  man  doubts  this,  we  need  only  refer  him 
to  the  spectacle  of  duplicity  and  demagogism  which  our  ser 
vants  in  Washington  have  exhibited  in  dealing  with  this 
question  during  the  past  six  or  seven  years,  and  to  the  gen 
eral  chuckle  of  delight  which  followed  the  final  abandonment 
of  all  further  attempts  to  reform  administrative  abuses  ;  while 
the  faithlessness  of  the  present  administration  to  its  pledges 
in  dealing  with  this  issue  and  its  slippery  game  of  fast  and 
loose  have  provoked  the  disgust  and  contempt  of  honest  men 
of  all  parties.  The  remedv  must  come  from  the  people,  and 
the  people  must  be  rallied  and  organized  against  the  hierarchy 
of  rogues  and  malefactors  who  prey  upon  the  nation  and 
make  political  honesty  a  jest. 

The  labor  question  involves  a  reform  of  world-wide  sig 
nificance.  The  question  of  finance  is  simply  a  part  of  it. 
The  abolition  of  negro  slavery  was  a  magnificent  triumph  of 
labor  reform,  lifting  four  million  human  beings  from  the  con 
dition  of  beasts  of  burden  to  the  dignity  of  men.  This  sys 
tem  of  chattelized  humanity  rested  upon  that  false  relation  of 
arbitrary  power  upon  the  one  side,  and  dependence  and  help 
lessness  on  the  other,  which  is  the  life  of  every  form  of 
oppression.  The  right  adjustment  of  the  conflict  between 


96  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

capital  and  labor  will  emancipate  all  the  races  of  men  from 
all  forms  of  slavery.  It  will  consummate  the  work  of  which 
abolitionism  was  the  beginning.  This  involves  a  complete 
revolution  in  our  whole  system  of  legislation  and  policy. 
The  foundations  of  our  civilization  were  laid  in  conquest  and 
robbery,  and  these,  under  the  names  of  feudalism  and  mon 
archy,  have  held  the  race  in  subjection.  The  remedy  is  rad 
ical  reconstruction,  and  it  involves  the  life  of  our  institutions. 
"At  the  very  commencement  of  society,"  says  Mr.  Thorn 
ton,  in  his  valuable  book  on  "  Labor,"  "  as  soon  as  materials 
for  its  construction  were  brought  together,  its  living  con 
stituents  proceeded  forthwith  to  arrange  themselves  in  layers, 
the  stronger,  nimbler  and  cunninger  climbing  up  on  their 
brothers'  shoulders,  and  occupying  the  higher  places 
and  leaving  to  those  below  only  the  office  of  uphold 
ing  them  in  their  elevation."  He  adds,  "The  upper 
myriads  may  cry  peace,  peace,  but  there  will  be  no  more 
peace  for  them,  on  the  old  terms,  with  the  lower  millions." 
And  there  ought  to  be  none.  When  we  talk  about  the  rights 
of  labor,  we  talk  about  the  rights  of  man.  When  we  say  that 
a  fair  day's  work  is  entitled  to  a  fair  day's  wages,  we  declare 
a  principle  which,  as  Carlyle  says,  is  as  "  indisputable  as 
arithmetical  multiplication  tables,"  and  which  "  must  and 
will  have  itself  fulfilled."  We  can  no  more  escape  it  than 
we  can  escape  gravitation.  Our  talk  about  democracy,  and 
the  sacredness  of  human  rights,  while  capital  has  its  foot  on 
the  neck  of  the  laborer,  is  a  sham  and  a  cheat.  It  is  the 
hollow  dreariness  of  demagogism.  The  chief  end  of  gov 
ernment  is  not  the  protection  of  property,  but  of  man  ;  and 
this  truth  must  be  practically  illustrated  in  such  laws  as  shall 
hold  in  check  the  power  of  concentrated  capital  in  alliance 
with  labor-saving  machinery,  and  those  giant  corporations 
which  too  often  control  the  makers  and  expounders  of  the 
laws,  and  are  virtually  endowed  with  life-offices  and  powers 
of  hereditary  succession.  The  task  is  a  large  one,  and  of 
course  will  require  time,  toil  and  patience.  It  presents  the 
most  fearful  problem  with  which  enlightened  humanity  has 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  97 

yet  been  called  on  to  deal.  By  the  side  of  this  labor  question 
the  old  slavery  issue  dwindles  into  a  trifle.  It  casts  its  por 
tentous  shadow  across  every  civilized  land,  and  is  rallying 
and  organizing  multiplying  millions  of  discontented  and  de 
termined  men,  whose  just  demands  can  not  safely  be  slighted. 
It  foreshadows  a'conflict  between  the  vandalism  and  madness 
of  communism  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  rapacity  of  capital 
on  the  other,  which  naturally  tends  to  provoke  and  inspire 
it,  and  which,  as  the  Duke  of  Argyll  declares,  "overrides 
even  the  love  of  life,  and  silences  even  the  fear  of  death." 
The  omens  of  a  coming  storm  are  quite  as  discernible  as 
were  those  which  preceded  the  deadly  struggle  which  at 
last  buried  African  slavery  in  its  bloody  grave.  Shall  we 
heed  these  omens,  and  by  wise  and  timely  precautions  seek 
to  avert  the  threatened  calamity,  or  madly  resign  ourselves 
to  the  reckless  and  pitiless  principle  of  evolution,  and  thus 
invite  the  lightning  of  retribution,  which  else  might  be  con 
ducted  harmlessly  to  the  earth? 

The  land  question  is  the  twin-brother  of  the  labor  ques 
tion,  and  involves  considerations  equally  momentous  and  far- 
reaching.  "The  earth  is  literally  the  leaf  we  feed  on  ;"  and, 
therefore,  no  question  can  more  vitally  affect  humanity  than 
the  character  of  the  laws  which  deal  with  it.  This  is  most 
signally  illustrated  in  England,  whose  agricultural  laborers 
are  among  the  most  degraded  human  beings  on  earth.  This 
is  the  ripe  fruit  of  her  system  of  land-tenures.  "Time  was," 
says  the  Westminster  Review,  "when,  at  the  call  of  the  coun 
try,  the  yeomen  of  England  rose  and  fought  and  conquered 
her  liberties.  Their  degenerate  descendants  would  be  more 
likely  to  fight  as  hirelings  for  any  form  of  slavery  and  super 
stition — if,  indeed,  they  could  be  got  to  fight  at  all."  It  is 
as  true  of  England  as  of  any  country  in  Europe,  that,  "  the 
whole  energy,  and  knowledge,  and  resources  of  the  land  are 
barreled  up  in  towns."  Mr.  Hoskyns,  in  his  chapter  on  the 
land-laws  of  that  country,  says  :  "  There  is  not  a  living  ani 
mal  connected  with  the  farm,  from  the  draught-team  down 
to  the  sheep-dog,  that  is  not  better  lodged  and  looked  after 
7 


90  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

than  the  laborer  and  his  family."  He  is  a  slave.  His  con 
dition  is  exactly  described  by  the  definition  of  a  slave,  as 
given  in  the  old  codes  of  the  Carolinas,  namely,  "  one 
doomed  to  live  without  knowledge,  and  without  the  capacity 
to  make  anything  his  own,  and  to  toil  that  another  may  reap 
the  fruits.1'  Liberty  implies  opportunity,*  self-culture,  the 
untrammeled  development  and  use  of  the  powers  of  a  man  ; 
and  all  these  are  denied  him.  Land-monopoly,  indeed,  is 
slavery.  A  government  which  allows  the  land  to  become 
the  patrimony  of  the  few  can  not  be  free,  for  the  simple  rea 
son  that  the  land-holders  of  every  country  are  its  masters. 
The  most  stupendous  system  of  organized  robbery  which 
scourges  the  world  is  that  which  strips  the  poor  of  their  nat 
ural  inheritance  in  the  soil. 

Are  we  told  that  this  question  does  not  concern  us  in  the 
United  States,  since  we  have  no  laws  of  primogeniture  and 
entail,  and  no  great  monopolies  handed  down  to  us  as  the 
fruit  of  feudal  times?  I  answer,  that,  through  our  large 
grants  to  railway  corporations,  our  system  of  Indian  treaties, 
our  swamp-land  legislation,  our  yet-unforbidden  curse  of 
land  speculation,  and  other  forms  of  maladministration,  we 
are  laying  the  foundations  of  a  system  of  serfdom  almost  as 
fearful  as  that  which  now  afflicts  England.  In  several  states 
of  our  Union  there  are  single  farms  of  a  half-million  acres  ; 
and  even  in  old  Massachusetts,  where  liberty  and  local  self- 
government  had  their  birth  in  he'r  policy  of  small  estates,  the 
large  farms  are  rapidly  swallowing  up  the  small  ones,  while 
a  crouching  tenantry,  toiling  under  absentee  landlords,  bears 
witness  at  once  to  the  decline  of  agriculture  and  the  decay  of 
freedom.  If  our  popular  system  of  government  is  to  be  pre 
served,  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  our  land  policy 
must  be  radically  reformed.  And  it  will  not  reform  itself. 
Evolution  will  not  meet  the  danger,  for  evil  and  ruin  are 
evolved,  as  well  as  good,  when  unchecked  by  human  en 
deavors.  The  false  steps  we  have  taken  must  be  reversed 
in  the  interest  of  justice  and  the  rights  of  the  people.  We 
need  such  agitators  and  reformers  as  Cobden  and  Mill,  and 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  99 

such  missionaries  as  Joseph  Arch.  What  will  our  vaunted 
freedom  be  worth  if  we  suffer  the  canker  of  great  estates  to 
eat  away  the  life  of  our  yeomanry?  What  refuge  will  be  left 
for  us  against  the  unhealthy  growth  and  fearful  domination 
of  our  chief  cities,  if  a  great  system  of  centralization  in  agri 
culture  is  to  palsy  the  manhood  of  our  "rural  districts,"  and 
give  us  such  a  breed  of  cultivators  as  those  of  England? 
These  questions  demand  an  answer  from  every  believer  in 
democratic  government.  They  take  hold  of  our  social  well- 
being  and  our  national  life  ;  for — 

"A  bold  peasantry,  their  country's  pride, 
When  once  destroyed  can  never,  be  supplied." 

The  reformer  is  needed  in  dealing  with  still  another  ques 
tion.  We  have  only  lately  commemorated  the  nation's  first 
centennial.  We  fitly  honored  the  deeds  of  the  famous  men 
who  declared  that  "taxation  without  representation  is 
tyranny,"  and  threw  life,  fortune,  and  honor  into  the  defense 
of  this  principle.  It  wras  the  key-note  and  ceaseless  battle- 
cry  of  their  grand  struggle.  The  right  of  the  people  who 
paid  the  taxes  to  be  heard  on  the  question  of  voting  them 
was  accepted  as  a  self-evident  truth.  "They  who  have  no 
voice  nor  vote,"  said  Dr.  Franklin,  "  in  the  selecting  of  rep 
resentatives,  do  not  enjoy  liberty,  but  are  absolutely  enslaved 
to  those  who  have  votes."  This  is  as  self-evident  as  any 
truth  in  the  great  Declaration.  A  free  government  is  one 
resting  upon  the  free  choice  of  the  people,  and  every  person 
having  the  power  of  choosing  has  an  inborn  and  equal  right 
to  be  heard,  in  person  or  by  his  representative,  in  the  man 
agement  of  those  public  interests  which  concern  him  in  com 
mon  with  all  other  citizens.  Idiots,  lunatics,  infants,  and 
criminals  who  have  forfeited  their  right,  are  necessarily  pre 
cluded  from  any  share  in  the  exercise  of  political  power ; 
but  no  other  exceptions  can  be  made  consistently  with  the 
rights  of  man.  An  intelligent  human  being,  innocent  of 
crime,  yielding  his  obedience  to  the  government,  answerable 
to  it  in  his  person  and  property  for  disobedience,  and  yet 


TOO  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

denied  any  political  rights,  is  a  slave.  If  this  is  not  true, 
then  nothing  is  true.  But  our  fathers  were  not  ready  to 
apply  this  truth  in  its  complete  length  and  breadth.  They 
did  not  perfectly  keep  step  to  the  logic  of  their  own  avowed 
principles.  They  lived  in  the  twilight  of  the  political  gospel 
they  proclaimed,  and  scarcely  dreamed  of  the  high-noon  of 
democracy  which  has  since  lighted  up  the  political  horizon. 
Accordingly,  they  withheld  the  ballot  from  the  poor  man  on 
account  of  his  poverty.  This  was  done  in  all  the  states  in 
the  early  years  of  the  government.  As  a  nation,  we  have 
long  since  outgrown  this  folly.  The  negro  was  denied  any 
share  in  the  exercise  of  political  power  on  account  of  the 
color  of  his  skin,  or  that  American  prejudice  which  had  been 
evolved  from  the  institution  of  slavery.  But  slavery  has 
perished,  and  the  principles  of  our  fathers  have  found  an 
other  application  in  the  conversion  of  the  negro  into  a  citizen 
and  a  voter.  We  have  now  no  qualification  for  the  ballot 
founded  on  race,  color,  or  propeity,  or  any  educational  re 
quirement  ;  and  yet  we  have  twenty  million  citizens  in  the 
United  States  who  are  compelled  to  pay  their  taxes  and  obey 
the  laws,  while  they  are  denied  any  share  whatever  in  the 
exercise  of  political  power.  This  is  done  because  of  their  sex, 
and  is  as  hateful  and  anti-republican  a  discrimination  as  can 
well  be  conceived.  An  aristocracy  founded  on  it  is  quite  as 
odious  and  absurd  as  an  aristocracy  founded  on  color,  or 
race,  or  any  other  mere  accident  of  humanity.  It  can  not 
be  defended  for  a  moment  by  any  believer  in  democracy. 
In  the  name  of  justice  and  decency,  what  has  sex  to  do  with 
the  question  of  moral  or  political  right?  But  my  purpose  is 
not  nowr  to  argue  the  question,  but  only  to  state  it,  and  to 
rank  it  among  the  grand  living  issues  yet  to  be  tried  by  the 
people.  Howr  it  will  finally  be  decided  is  not  a  matter  of  the 
least  doubt.  Our  exclusion  of  woman  from  politics  will  take 
its  place  among  the  curious  and  startling  barbarisms  of  the 
past.  It  is  true  that  as  yet  we  are  only  midway  on  our  jour 
ney  to  universal  suffrage  ;  but  that  journey  wrill  be  completed, 
because  any  step  backward  will  be  as  impossible  as  any 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  IOI 

pause  where  we  are.  We  are  constantly  enlarging  the 
sphere  of  woman's  occupations.  We  are  reforming  our 
laws  respecting  her  personal  and  property  rights.  We  are 
providing  for  her  a  higher  education,  and  thus  recognizing 
her  claim  to  equal  rights.  We  have  already  made  her  a  cit 
izen,  and  in  some  of  the  states,  and  as  to  certain  positions, 
she  is  entitled  to  vote  and  to  hold  office.  There  is,  and  there 
can  be,  no  abiding-place  in  her  progress  toward  perfect  po 
litical  equality  with  man.  When  and  how  this  goal  shall 
be  reached  must  largely  depend  upon  the  labors  and  sacri 
fices  of  those  who  would  speed  the  work  ;  for  the  toils  and 
struggles  of  the  abolitionists  might  just  as  wisely  have  been 
renounced,  as  to  surrender  the  cause  of  woman's  enfran 
chisement  to  the  tender  mercies  of  social  evolution. 

Time  will  only  permit  me  to  refer  to  one  further  task 
which  invokes  the  helping  hand  of  reform,  and  that  is  the 
total  separation  of  our  civil  and  ecclesiastical  affairs.  Our 
Protestant  sects  complain  that  the  pope,  as  the  vicegerent  of 
God  on  earth,  not  only  claims  supreme  authority  over  the 
consciences  of  men,  but  over  all  human  governments,  and 
thus  assails  civil  liberty  as  well  as  religious.  They  say  it 
was  the  Catholic  Church  which  defeated  Mr.  Gladstone's 
Education  Bill,  and  inspired  the  Franco-German  War,  while 
it  is  striving  to  prevent  the  unification  of  Germany,  and 
blocking  up  the  way  of  struggling  liberalism  in  France  and 
Spain.  They  affirm  that  this  same  power  is  waging  war 
against  our  common  schools,  and  endeavoring,  by  sapping 
and  mining,  to  intrench  itself  in  the  United  States  ;  and  that 
it  believes  our  free  institutions  offer  a  better  soil  for  the 
growth  of  its  principles  than  the  centralized  governments  of 
Europe,  while  plotting  the  overthrow  of  our  liberty  through 
its  vast  and  well-drilled  army  of  Jesuits.  How  shall  we  deal 
with  this  alleged  raid  upon  civilization  and  progress?  Social 
evolution  will  not  meet  the  danger,  for  that  has  brought  it 
to  our  doors,  and  seems  to  be  constantly  giving  it  strength. 
Shall  we  appeal  to  sectarian  animosities,  and  array  Protest 
antism  against  Catholicism  in  deadly  strife?  The  thought  of 


IO2  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

such  a  struggle  between  a  great  centralized  power,  always 
acting  as  a  unit,  and  warring  sects  which  could  never  be 
effectively  rallied  under  a  common  banner,  is  not  to  be  enter 
tained  for  a  moment.  The  question  is  not  so  much  one  of 
sects,  or  religions,  as  of  constitutional  liberty,  vitally  affect 
ing  the  rights  of  all  men.  The  government  of  the  United 
States  is  neither  Protestant  nor  Catholic.  It  is  not  even 
Christian,  Washington  himself  being  our  witness  ;  nor  is  it 
Jewish,  Mohammedan  or  pagan.  The  government  rightfully 
has  nothing  to  do  with  religion,  and  religion  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  government.  The  state  has  no  more  right  to 
teach  religion  than  the  church  has  to  assume  the  functions  of 
the  state.  Our  only  safe  ground,  therefore,  is  the  total  secu 
larization  of  our  politics.  The  "  concubinage  of  church  and 
state"  must  be  utterly  destroyed.  On  this  principle  all  can 
stand,  irrespective  of  religious  faith.  While  the  state  is 
bound  to  protect  all  men  in  the  unmolested  enjoyment  of 
their  religious  opinions,  it  must  stand  entirely  aloof  from  any 
sort  of  espousal  of  any  form  of  faith.  This  is  our  safeguard 
against  ecclesiastical  domination,  whether  Catholic  or  Prot 
estant. 

And  this  will  require  an  amendment  of  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States.  It  declares  that  "  Congress  shall  make 
no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting 
the  free  exercise  thereof,"  and  thus  places  the  national  gov 
ernment  in  its  true  position  ;  but  the  individual  states  are  left 
entirely  free  in  dealing  with  this  question.  They  may  make 
the  Catholic  faith  or  that  of  any  Protestant  sect  the  state  re 
ligion,  and  levy  taxes  for  the  support  of  it  upon  those  who 
conscientiously  disbelieve  in  its  creed.  The  union  of  church 
and  state,  which  our  fathers  repudiated  in  the  national  con 
stitution,  may  thus  be  established  in  defiance  of  the  rights  of 
conscience,  as  was  systematically  done  in  all  the  colonies, 
save  one,  during  the  period  of  the  Revolution  and  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  government.  Some  of  them  required  all  offi 
cers  of  the  state  to  be  of  the  Protestant  faith  ;  and  even  at 
this  day  religious  tests  are  prescribed  in  several  of  them  as 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  IOJ 

conditions  of  holding  office,  by  which  the  choice  of  lit  men 
for  the  public  service  is  foolishly  restricted.  In  violation  of 
the  principles  of  our  fathers,  the  church  property  of  both 
Catholics  and  Protestants  is  exempted  from  taxation,  thus  in 
directly  compelling  Jews,  Mohammedans,  theists,  atheists 
and  freethinkers  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  a  religion 
which  they  disbelieve,  and  violating  the  rights  of  conscience, 
which,  to  every  reflecting  man,  are  even  more  precious  than 
the  right  to  liberty  or  life.  A  constitutional  amendment  has 
recently  been  proposed  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
which,  if  adopted,  will  recognize  the  Bible  in  our  public 
schools  by  "divine  right,"  and  forever  protect  church  prop 
erty  in  its  present  unjust  exemption  ;  and  this  amendment 
lacked  only  a  few  votes  of  the  two-thirds  required  to  pass  it. 
The  growth  of  the  ecclesiastical  spirit  is  still  further  manifested 
by  another  proposed  amendment,  emanating  from  an  organi 
zation  called  the  ''National  Reform  Association,"  providing 
for  the  "  acknowledgment  of  Almighty  God  as  the  source  of 
all  authority  in  civil  government,  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as 
the  ruler  of  nations,  and  his  revealed  will  as  of  supreme  au 
thority."  Should  this  be  adopted,  the  union  of  church  and 
state  would  be  complete,  and  "  appropriate  legislation  "  for 
the  disfranchisement  and  punishment  of  heretics  would  un 
doubtedly  follow.  The  only  true  remedy  for  these  threat 
ened  dangers  is  the  absolute  divorce  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
authority.  There  is  no  middle  ground  on  which  we  can 
stand.  "  Our  constitution  must  be  changed  to  suit  our  prac 
tices,  or  our  practices  to  suit  our  constitution."  It  must  be  on 
one  side  or  the  other,  and  the  attempt  to  place  it  on  both  will 
prove  as  fruitless,  and  it  may  be  as  disastrous,  as  was  the 
effort  to  make  our  government  "half  slave  and  half  free." 
We  oppose  and  denounce  the  assaults  of  the  Catholic  Church 
upon  our  common  schools  as  a  monstrous  interference  with 
purely  secular  affairs  ;  but  our  own  sense  of  consistency  and 
self-respect  should  compel  us  forthwith  to  exclude  the  Bible 
from  those  schools,  and  thus  deprive  that  hierarchy  of  a  very 
convenient  and  weighty  apology  for  its  course.  The  policy 


104  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

of  the  Catholic  Church,  so  far  as  it  makes  itself  the  ally  of 
ignorance  and  superstition,  must  be  resolutely  resisted  ;  but 
that  resistance  can  best  be  made  by  jealously  maintaining 
civil  liberty,  and  insisting  upon  a  well-organized  system  of 
common  schools  and  compulsory  secular  education.  In  thus 
standing  by  the  equal  religious  rights  of  American  citizens, 
we  shall  be  invincible  ;  for  liberty  and  popular  intelligence 
are  the  deadly  enemies  of  every  form  of  ecclesiastical  usur 
pation,  as  they  are  the  impregnable  bulwarks  of  our  demo 
cratic  institutions.  In  seeking  our  purpose,  through  an 
amendment  of  the  constitution,  we  cherish  no  hostility  to 
state  rights,  but  only  an  overmastering  devotion  to  human 
rights.  We  cherish  no  hostility  whatever  to  any  form  of  re 
ligion,  but  would  protect  and  defend  all  religions  under  equal 
laws.  Nor  do  we  fear  sectarian  wrangles  and  divisions  as 
the  result  of  the  principles  for  which  we  contend.  On  the 
contrary,  we  confidently  predict  perpetual  peace  through  the 
final  removal  of  the  chief  causes  of  strife  ;  and  our  grand  aim 
can  only  fail  through  the  criminal  recreancy  of  the  people 
themselves  to  the  teachings  of  our  fathers  and  the  pregnant 
warnings  of  history. 

And  here  I  close  my  protest  against  the  baleful  heresy 
which  has  served  me  for  my  text.  In  confounding  the  dis 
tinction  between  physical  and  social  evolution,  it  tends  to 
confound  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong.  It  threat 
ens  to  dethrone  conscience,  and  substitute  development  for 
duty.  It  exchanges  liberty  for  necessity,  and  thus  deals 
with  humanity  as  a  factor  in  mechanics.  By  committing  all 
social  questions  to  the  working  of  inevitable  laws,  it  dispar 
ages  the  value  of  human  character,  and  trifles  with  human 
responsibility.  It  weakens  the  very  foundations  of  virtue  by 
belittling  the  motives  which  inspire  it.  It  unduly  exalts  the 
intellect,  and  makes  the  follies  and  mistakes  of  good  men 
an  excuse  for  tearing  down  the  sanctuary  of  the  heart.  Its 
ugly  footprints  are  already  visible  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  in  the  halting  steps  of  special  reforms,  and  the 
growing  indisposition  of  government  to  deal  with  great  social 


EVOLUTION  AND  REFORM.  105 

questions  over  which  its  jurisdiction  is  clear.  This  is  true  in 
a  measure  of  our  own  country,  while  the  moral  felonies 
which  blacken  our  politics  and  defile  the  name  of  religion 
have  their  root,  to  some  extent,  in  the  same  soil.  This  deadly 
mildew  of  modern  life,  this  dry-rot  of  moral  unbelief  which 
would  wither  the  leaf  and  flower  of  virtue,  must  be  arrested, 
if  we  would  escape  social  stagnation  and  spiritual  death.  I 
speak  earnestly,  because  I  feel  deeply.,  when  I  say  that  by 
all  means  we  must  keep  alive  our  faith  in  virtue,  in  the  pre- 
ciousness  of  character,  and  in  personal  responsibility  ;  for, 
without  this  faith,  men  will  content  themselves  with  coddling 
their  own  worldly  comfort,  and  turning  every  good  cause 
adrift,  while  we  shall  be  left  without  God  and  without  hope 
in  the  world. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM. 


DELIVERED  IN  THE  GRAND  OPERA  HOUSE,  INDIANAPOLIS,  ON 
THE  26™  OF  AUGUST,  1876. 


[This  speech  was  delivered  at  the  opening  of  the  campaign  for  Tilden  and 
Hendricks.  Its  circulation  was  phenomenal.  The  National  Democratic  Com 
mittee  distributed  two  million  copies  in  tract  form,  while  this  must  have  been 
more  than  duplicated  by  its  publication  in  the  leading  and  local  newspapers 
in  every  section  of  the  Union.] 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Fellow-Citizens:  It  can  scarcely  be 
necessary  for  me  to  remark  that  I  do  not  appear  before  you 
to-night  as  a  partisan,  but  as  an  independent  voter.  I  am  a 
member  of  neither  of  the  great  organizations  now  struggling 
for  the  mastery  ;  and  while  I  am  ready  to  take  my  stand  in 
the  pending  national  canvass,  and  to  avow  the  reasons  for 
my  action,  I  prefer  to  retain  my  entire  political  independence. 
The  perfectly  faultless  and  straight-laced  party  man  occupies 
a  radically  different  position.  He  feels  obliged  to  defend  his 
party  both  as  to  what  it  has  done  in  the  past  and  what  it  may 
do  in  the  future.  He  believes  that  outside  of  it  no  good  thing 
can  exist,  and  that  inside  of  it  all  needed  reforms  must  orig 
inate.  The  platform  of  his  party  is  his  confession  of  political 
faith,  and  whoever  adds  to  it  or  takes  from  it  is  to  be  counted 
a  heretic,  who  should  be  summarily  and  soundly  anathema 
tized.  The  discipline  of  his  party  is  like  that  of  an  army  or 
a  military  camp.  If  a  member  is  found  guilty  of  insubordina 
tion  he  must  be  shot  as  a  deserter  and  branded  as  an  enemy 
of  society,  if  not  a  traitor  to  his  country.  This  frightful  tyr 
anny  over  individual  judgment  and  conscience  is  the  root 
and  source  of  the  most  startling  vices  and  depravities  which 
now  afflict  our  politics  and  scourge  society.  It  is,  of  course, 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM.  IO7 

the  deadly  foe  of  all  measures  looking  to  the  reformation  of 
political  abuses  ;  for  how  can  a  man  fearlessly  advocate  the 
truth  with  a  halter  about  his  neck?  If  his  party  is  a  deity  to 
be  worshiped,  or  a  master  to  be  served,  with  what  propriety 
or  decency  can  he  unfurl  the  flag  of  reform  ?  Every  passing 
day  confirms  the  truth  of  what  I  said  four  years  ago, 
that  a  political  party  should  be  regarded  simply  as  a  political 
make-shift.  It  is  an  agency,  now  and  then  made  necessary 
by  some  new  turn  in  the  wheel  of  our  politics,  and  useful  only 
so  long  as  the  occasion  for  it  continues.  It  is  not  an  institu 
tion,  but  a  temporary  combination  of  men  inspired  by  a  com 
mon  political  aim  ;  and  wrhen  that  aim  is  accomplished,  the 
combination  should  be  dissolved.  Having  done  its  work, 
and  being  unfitted .  for  new  tasks,  it  becomes  a  stumbling- 
block  in  the  path  of  progress,  and  ceases  to  be  a  party  by 
degenerating  into  a  faction. 

The  force  of  these  observations  is  fitly  illustrated  in  the 
political  situation  to-day.  Here  are  two  powerful  national 
parties  engaged  in  a  fierce  struggle  for  the  ascendency.  They 
are  grappling  with  each  other  as  if  the  salvation  of  the  repub 
lic  awaited  the  result  of  the  conflict ;  and  yet  the  old  strifes 
which  at  first  marshaled  them  against  each  other,  and  for 
years  kept  alive  their  animosities,  are  all  absolutely  settled. 
Their  platforms  are  only  different  words,  set  to  the  same 
music.  Their  antagonisms  are  inspired  far  less  by  any  rad 
ical  difference  of  opinions  upon  any  vital  principles  than  by 
old  memories  and  traditionary  hates  which  should  be  allowed 
to  sleep,  but  which  continue  to  stand  in  the  way  of  our  na 
tional  well-being.  Pending  this  embittered  struggle  for 
power,  the  cry  for  reform  comes  up  from  the  people,  wholly 
irrespective  of  party  lines,  and  endeavors,  as  best  it  can,  to 
voice  itself  in  political  action.  How  shall  the  work  of  reform 
go  forward  ?  These  old  parties  were  organized  to  deal  with 
other  and  very  different  questions,  which  have  been  irrevoc 
ably  disposed  of;  and,  what  the  country  now  needs  is  a  com 
plete  reconstruction  of  parties  in  response  to  the  demand  of 
the  people  for  a  purified  politics,  instead  of  forcing  the  new 


IO8  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

wine  of  reform  into  old  bottles  which  have  served  their  pur 
pose  and  have  been  defiled  by  some  very  questionable  uses. 
Parties  should  be  the  servants  of  the  people  and  the  hand 
maids  of  progress,  and  not  "  lag  superfluous,"  as  obstructions 
to  the  general  welfare.  It  is  true  that  both  of  our  two  rival 
parties  preach  the  gospel  of  reform  ;  but  they  preach  it  and 
intend  to  practice  it  subject  to  party  discipline,  and  thus  un 
avoidably  throw  themselves  in  its  way.  Is  the  Republican 
party  the  fit  and  chosen  instrument  of  reform?  In  the  light 
of  its  record  of  profligacy  and  plunder  for  years  past,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  persuade  honest  Democrats  to  trust  it.  Is 
the  Democratic  party  any  more  acceptable  to  honest  Repub 
licans?  They  point  to  its  war  record  and  its  complicity  with 
political  corruption  both  prior  and  subsequent  to  the  late  civil 
war.  This  is  our  political  dilemma,  and  these  are  the  con 
siderations  which  press  upon  intelligent,  conscientious  men 
to-day,  as  they  did  four  years  ago.  They  gave  birth  to  the 
Liberal  Republican  party,  and  the  combination  thus  formed 
for  the  overthrow  of  Grantism,  which  has  usurped  the  con 
trol  of  the  Republican  organization.  I  labored  for  this  com 
bination  with  all  my  might,  because  I  thought  I  saw  in  it  the 
blessed  prospect  of  a  general  party  break-up,  and  the  eman 
cipation  of  the  people  from  their  old  political  task-masters. 
Owing  chiefly  to  the  monstrous  prostitution  of  federal  patron 
age  to  partisan  purposes,  the  new  movement  was  defeated  at 
the  polls.  The  Democrats,  after  having  caught  a  glimpse  of 
the  promised  land  of  independence,  fainted  by  the  way,  and 
fell  back  into  their  old  party  intrenchments.  The  Liberals 
likewise  became  disheartened.  Instead  of  reorganizing  their 
forces  and  calling  for  recruits  in  order  to  a  renewal  of  the 
fight,  they  suffered  their  army  to  disband.  They  preferred 
flank  movements  upon  the  enemy  by  detachments  of  our 
forces,  to  a  general  engagement  of  the  whole  after  a  thor 
ough  organization  for  the  purpose.  Instead  of  commanding 
their, own  fortunes  by  pushing  forward  their  work  with  the 
courage  and  strong  will  of  the  early  abolitionists,  they 
adopted  the  policy  of  hovering  along  the  lines  of  the  old 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM.  109 

parties,  and  making  an  occasional  descent  here  and  there 
upon  one  or  the  other  of  them,  in  the  hope  of  thus  speeding 
the  work  of  reform.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  this 
was  a  great  mistake,  seriously  retarding  the  progress  which 
a  different  policy  would  have  secured. 

I  do  not  deny  that  much  good  has  been  done  by  the  inde 
pendent  political  action  to  which  I  have  referred.  We  should 
acknowledge  this  with  thankfulness.  The  lesson  of  the  Cin 
cinnati  Convention  of  1872,  as  a  formidable  rebellion  against 
party  devil-worship,  has  not  been  lost.  The  spirit  of  reform 
has  forced  its  way  into  both  parties,  and  compelled  their 
respect.  Its  shaping  hand  is  seen  both  in  their  platforms 
and  in  their  nominations.  In  the  national  struggle  this  year, 
the  men  who  abjure  party  discipline  are  strong  enough  to 
determine  the  result.  No  man  occupies  a  position  of  so 
much  importance  and  responsibility  as  the  independent  voter. 
But  he  finds  the  question  of  present  duty  singularly  compli 
cated  by  circumstances  which  the  logic  of  political  events 
has  compelled  him  to  consider.  He  would  gladly  have  joined 
a  new  organization,  wholly  unshackled  by  the  politics  of  the 
past,  and  able  vigorously  to  prosecute  the  work  of  reform  ; 
but  no  such  party  is  in  the  field.  He  is  a  member  of  none  of 
the  existing  parties,  and  believes  their  machinery  a  hindrance 
rather  than  a  help  to  the  reformation  of  abuses  ;  and  yet  he 
is  obliged  to  co-operate  writh  one  of  them  or  accept  the  dis 
tasteful  alternative  of  temporary  self-disfranchisement.  Such 
is  the  predicament  in  which  the  political  outsider  finds  him 
self  to-day  ;  and  what  he  ought  to  do  in  the  present  canvass 
is  the  problem  I  propose  to  consider.  Of  course  I  shall  deal 
with  it  as  it  presents  itself  to  me,  and  not  as  an  orthodox  Re 
publican  wrho  voted  for  Grant  four  years  ago,  and  who  has 
patiently  carried  the  ugly  burdens  of  the  party  ever  since. 
What  is  the  duty  of  an  honest  Republican  who  turned  his 
back  upon  his  party  four  years  ago  on  account  of  its  mis 
deeds?  This  is  my  question,  and  the  answer  to  it  naturally 
invites  the  consideration  of  these  three  further  questions  : 

Was  the  Liberal  Republican  revolt  of  1872  justified  by 
facts? 


IIO  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

If  so,  has  the  Republican  party  by  its  general  good  be 
havior  and  its  honest  zeal  in  the  work  of  political  purification 
during  the  past  four  years  earned  the  respect  and  confidence 
of  the  people,  which  it  had  lost?  If  not,  can  Liberals  con 
sistently  and  honestly  support  Tilden  and  Hendricks? 

In  seeking  the  true  answer  to  the  first  of  these  questions 
we  are  obliged  to  recall  the  facts  and  circumstance  of  the 
memorable  struggle  of  four  years  ago.  It  should  be  remem 
bered  that  the  popular  demand  for  reform  was  then  almost  as 
loud  as  it  is  now.  Grant  and  Colfax  had  been  elected  in  1868 
on  a  platform  pledging  the  party  to  reform  the  corruptions  of 
Andrew  Johnson's  administration  ;  but  the  pledge  had  been 
shamefully  belied.  While  the  old  party  issues  had  been  re 
treating  into  the  past,  the  mercenary  and  trading  element  of 
the  party  had  gradually  found  its  way  to  the  front,  and  com 
pletely  appropriated  the  President.  Naturally  and  necessa 
rily  the  spirit  of  reform  was  evoked,  and  the  rallying  cry  of 
Sumner,  Trumbull,  and  the  men  who  subsequently  became 
conspicuous  as  leaders  of  the  Liberal  Republican  movement, 
was  "  reform  within  the  party."  They  did  not  dream  of  sep 
arating  themselves  from  the  grand  old  organization  in  the 
founding  of  which  they  had  had  so  large  a  share,  and  under 
whose  banner  they  had  fought  during  the  nation's  great  peril. 
Their  attachment  to  it  was  not  a  matter  of  conviction  merely, 
but  it  was  a  passion.  Sumner,  especially,  believed  it  was  to 
be  "filled  with  a  higher  life"  and  "lifted  to  yet  other  efforts," 
which  would  make  its  continued  existence  a  commanding 
necessity.  All  that  these  men  asked  was  the  expulsion  of 
political  corruption,  and  the  restoration  of  the  party  to  the 
purity  which  had  signalized  its  early  life.  They  demanded 
the  reform  of  abuses  in  the  New  York  and  New  Orleans 
custom  houses  ;  in  the  war  and  navy  departments  ;  and  in 
the  improvident  and  profligate  management  of  the  civil  serv 
ice  generally.  To  this  end  they  proposed  that  a  thorough 
and  impartial  investigation  should  be  made  ;  but  the  very 
same  party  leaders  who  are  preaching  "  reform  within  the 
party"  in  this  canvass  then  stoutly  denied  that  any  reform 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM.  Ill 

was  needed.  Morton,  Conkling,  and  the  men  since  so  well 
known  to  the  country  as  the  "senatorial  group,"  declared 
that  the  proposition  to  investigate  implied  party  guilt  and  could 
only  give  aid  to  the  Democrats.  They  branded  as  ene 
mies  of  the  Republican  party  the  distinguished  members  of 
it  who  simply  proposed  to  purify  and  save  it.  When  the 
popular  pressure  and  the  fear  of  party  detriment  threatened 
by  this  opposition  at  last  drove  them  from  their  indecent  posi 
tion,  the  committees  appointed  were  packed  in  the  interest  of 
the  Administration,  and  in  contempt  of  parliamentary  usage, 
while  the  reports  finally  submitted,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
were  shamefully  spoiled  by  whitewash.  What  was  to  be 
done?  The  men  who  had  hoisted  the  flag  of  reform  were 
obliged  to  do  one  of  two  things  :  They  must  cower  like 
slaves  under  the  party  lash,  in  the  hands  of  men  who  treated 
their  honest  demands  with  contempt,  and  who  undoubtedly 
represented  the  spirit  and  policy  of  the  Administration  ;  or 
they  must  take  counsel  of  their  own  manhood  and  self-respect, 
and  openly  rebel  against  a  party  despotism  that  had  become 
a  national  curse. 

Let  us  look  at  the  situation  more  particularly.  The  mis 
chiefs  of  war  had  crept  into  the  civil  administration  after  the 
war  was  ended.  The  government  had  been  compelled  to 
deal  with  a  strong  hand,  and  a  thorough  schooling  of  the 
President  and  his  party  in  the  use  of  power  had  familiarized 
them  with  military  ideas  and  habits,  and  drawn  them  toward 
loose  and  indefensible  opinions  respecting  the  powers  of  the 
general  and  state  governments  and  the  prerogatives  of  the 
executive.  These  considerations  could  not  be  overlooked 
by  the  men  whose  hearts  were  on  fire  with  the  desire  for  po 
litical  reform.  The  constitution  expressly  declares  that 
"the  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  con 
stitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  states,  are  reserved  by 
it  to  the  states  respectively,  or  to  the  people  ;"  but  the  the 
ory  upon  which  the  President  had  conducted  his  administra 
tion  was  that  all  powers  not  conferred  on  the  states  by  the 
constitution  are  reserved  to  the  United  States,  thus  com- 


112  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

pletely  overturning  the  doctrines  of  the  fathers,  and  setting 
at  defiance  the  very  words  of  the  constitution  itself.  This 
was  Grantism  and  orthodox  Republicanism  four  years  ago, 
as  it  is  to-day.  The  President  not  only  trampled  down  the 
right  of  local  self-government  in  repeated  instances,  but  he 
set  up  his  own  will  as  law,  even  against  the  authority  of  Con 
gress.  In  the  San  Domingo  affair  he  deliberately  usurped 
the  war-making  power  which  is  vested  in  Congress  by  the 
constitution.  On  the  pretense  of  helping  the  farmers  in 
"moving  their  crops,"  he  assumed  powers  which  no  despot 
on  earth  would  dare  exercise,  in  issuing  millions  of  currency 
without  warrant  of  law  and  on  his  own  individual  caprice. 
He  appointed  to  civil  places  about  him  men  in  the  military 
service,  in  violation  of  an  express  statute  which  he  was  sworn 
to  execute.  In  disregard  of  law  and  of  his  oath  of  office,  he 
quartered  federal  soldiers  on  the  Cherokee  neutral  lands  in 
Kansas  to  protect  a  railroad  corporation  in  driving  from  their 
homes  hundreds  of  settlers  who  claimed  the  lands  occupied 
by  them  in  good  faith  under  the  preemption  laws.  Through 
a  subordinate  officer  in  New  Orleans  he  seized  a  federal  ves 
sel  and  attempted  by  force  to  overawe  the  people  of  Louis 
iana  in  the  interest  of  his  renomination.  These  are  a  few 
examples  only,  selected  from  many,  showing  how  the  Presi 
dent  carried  the  military  and  imperial  spirit  into  his  office, 
and  set  aside  the  laws  which  were  as  binding  upon  him  as 
any  other  citizen,  while  the  example  of  his  disobedience  was 
preeminently  mischievous.  In  these  acts  he  had  the  sympa 
thy  and  support  of  a  Republican  Congress,  as  he  had  in  the 
act  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  and  the  enforcement 
acts,  which  embody  provisions  at  war  with  every  principle  of 
municipal  government,  and  can  only  be  defended  on  the  ty 
rant's  plea  that  the  central  power  can  administer  the  affairs 
of  a  locality  better  than  the  people  can  do  it  themselves. 
"The  end  of  good  government,"  says  De  Tocqueville,  "is 
to  insure  the  welfare  of  a  people,  and  not  merely  to  establish 
order  in  the  midst  of  its  misery." 

But  the  most  ample  and  overwhelming  vindication  of  the 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM.  113 

Liberal  movement  is  to  be  found  in  the  management  of  the 
Civil  Service.  In  the  canvass  of  1872,  the  friends  of  Gen. 
Grant  insisted  that  he  was  the  sincere  friend,  if  not  the  cham 
pion,  of  civil  service  reform.  With  airs  of  triumph  they 
pointed  to  the  fact  that  he  had  already  appointed  an  able 
civil  service  commission,  with  George  William  Curtis  at  its 
head,  for  the  purpose  of  dealing  with  this  vital  question. 
This  commission  had  made  its  report,  showing  that  about 
$100,000,000  of  the  public  revenues  are  annually  lost  in  the 
collection  through  the  incompetence  or  corruption  of  govern 
ment  officials.  The  strong  language  of  the  President  was 
quoted  in  which  he  told  the  country  that  "  honesty  and  effi 
ciency,  not  political  activity,  should  be  the  tenure  of  office." 
The  Philadelphia  platform  of  the  party  was  as  pronounced  as 
it  could  be  in  favor  of  lifting  the  whole  machinery  of  the  gov 
ernment  out  of  the  ruts  of  party,  and  thoroughly  purifying  it 
by  placing  it  in  the  hands  of  honest  and  competent  men, 
irrespective  of  politics.  And  yet  in  the  face  of  all  these 
brave  manifestoes  the  President  was  seeking  his  own  re-elec 
tion  through  his  well-organized  armv  of  eighty  thousand 
office  holders,  not  a  man  of  whom  was  safe  if  known  to  be 
opposed  to  his  re-election.  The  fact  was  perfectly  notorious 
and  undeniable  that  the  tenure  of  office  was  not  honesty  and 
efficiency  at  all,  but  "political  activity"  for  Grant.  It  is  true 
that  the  civil  service  commission  had  framed  a  set  of  rules 
for  the  protection  of  honest  officials  from  political  interfer 
ence,  but  these  rules  were  suspended  by  the  President  just 
as  often  as  it  suited  the  convenience  of  the  party  leaders  who 
had  him  in  their  keeping,  and  who  treated  the  whole  subject 
with  contempt. 

When  Senator  Conklin  wanted  a  faithful  public  servant 
turned  out  in  New  York  to  make  room  for  a  political  minion, 
the  rules  were  suspended  for  the  purpose.  When  Gen.  But 
ler  wanted  a  political  tool  in  the  place  of  an  honest  incumbent 
in  Massachusetts,  or  Senator  Morton  wanted  a  similar  favor 
in  Indiana,  the  rules  were  suspended  for  their  accommoda 
tion.  When  Gen.  Logan  wanted  the  collector  at  Chicago 
8 


114  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

turned  adrift,  because  he  would  not  join  Orville  Grant  in  his 
whisky  frauds,  and  in  order  to  make  room  for  one  of  his  po 
litical  henchmen,  the  President  was  his  humble  servant.  The 
postmaster  at  the  city  of  Galveston,  who,  I  believe,  was  a 
faithful  officer,  was  dismissed  to  make  room  for  a  man  who 
had  been  driven  out  of  the  House  of  Representatives  for 
fraud.  Tom  Murphy,  one  of  the  partners  in  the  Tammany 
Ring  of  thieves,  covered  all  over  with  his  rascalities  as  with 
a  garment,  and  with  neither  brains  nor  knowledge  enough  to 
fit  him  for  the  duties  of  any  civil  office,  was  appointed  col 
lector  of  the  port  of  the  city  of  New  York,  one  of  the  most 
lucrative  and  politically  potential  positions  under  the  gov 
ernment,  and  Moses  H.  Grinnell,  an  honest  and  capable  man, 
was  sent  into  retirement  as  a  further  illustration  of  civil  ser 
vice  reform.  And  when  the  popular  pressure  became  so 
portentious  as  to  compel  Murphy  to  resign,  the  President 
"  vindicated  "  him  by  a  letter  complimenting  him  on  the  abil 
ity  and  faithfulness  with  which  he  had  discharged  the  duties 
of  his  high  office,  while  Leet  and  Stocking,  who  had  been 
cheating  public  justice,  were  still  plundering  the  merchants 
of  New  York,  in  spite  of  their  protests  and  in  defiance  of  pub 
lic  opinion.  In  1872,  the  office  of  collector  at  New  Orleans 
was  held,  as  it  is  now,  by  brother-in-law  Casey,  who  brought 
out  his  "  Gatling  guns  "  to  aid  him  in  packing  a  political 
convention  for  his  party,  and  who  was  convicted  of  bribery 
and  corruption  by  a  congressional  committee  of  his  own  po 
litical  friends,  who  subsequently  reported  the  facts  to  the 
President  and  demanded  his  removal,  which  demand  was 
never  complied  with. 

Civil  service  reform  found  an  apt  illustration  in  the  per 
formances  of  Powell  Clayton,  of  Arkansas.  As  I  remember 
the  facts,  he  packed  the  legislature  of  that  state  by  corrupt 
means  with  his  tools,  who  in  turn  packed  him  into  the  United 
States  Senate  ;  but  when  the  grand  jury  of  that  district  in 
dicted  him  for  political  corruption,  and  thus  invited  his  atten 
tion  to  the  hospitalities  of  the  penitentiary,  the  President, 
wishing  to  "vindicate"  his  friend,  removed  the  marshal  and 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM.  115 

district  attorney  through  whose  agency  the  indictments  were 
supposed  to  have  been  found,  and  appointed  a  couple  of  Clay 
ton's  friends  in  their  place,  who  non  -prossed  the  indictments, 
by  which  the  distinguished  senator  was  allowed  to  escape 
justice  and  to  devote  his  "  political  activity"  to  the  re-elec 
tion  of  his  patron  and  friend.  Secretary  Robeson  took  $93,- 
ooo  of  your  money  from  the  treasury,  and  paid  it  on  a  false 
claim  to  a  rascal  named  Secor,  without  authority  of  law,  and 
\vas  excused  on  the  score  of  his  "good  intentions;"  while 
Secretary  Cox  had  been  driven  from  the  cabinet  for  refusing 
to  prostitute  his  office  to  political  purposes.  Postmaster  Gen 
eral  Creswell  tried  with  all  his  might  to  take  from  the  treas 
ury  $443,000,  and  pay  it  to  Chorpenning  on  a  fraudulent 
claim  for  carrying  the  mails  in  California.  The  President 
approved  his  conduct,  and  his  "political  activity"  on  the 
stump,  for  his  re-election.  The  President  espoused  the  San 
Domingo  swindle,  and  personally  assisted  General  Babcock, 
the  negotiator  and  ringleader  of  the  project,  in  lobbying  for 
it  in  the  Senate  ;  and  although  the  country  with  singular 
unanimity  condemned  it,  and  compelled  its  abandonment, 
Charles  Sumner,  for  performing  his  simple  duty  in  opposing 
it,  was  driven  from  his  chairmanship  of  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations,  and  Simon  Cameron,  who  was  turned 
out  of  Lincoln's  cabinet  during  the  war  on  account  of  his 
corrupt  complicity  with  army  contracts,  and  disgraced  by  a 
vote  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  who  had  had  a  national 
reputation  as  a  scoundrel  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
and  was  as  ignorant  of  our  foreign  affairs  as  he  was  innocent 
of  a  conscience,  was  made  Sumner's  successor,  while  the 
distinguished  senator  from  Massachusetts  and  the  foremost 
public  character  in  the  nation,  was  still  further  degraded  by 
the  offer  of  a  place  at  the  tail  of  the  Committee  on  Edu 
cation  and  Labor,  with  Flannigan,  of  Texas,  at  its  head! 
Civil  service  reform  !  Why,  gentlemen,  Carl  Schurz  told  us 
four  years  ago  that  he  had  seen  a  foreign  minister  at  Wash 
ington  hunting  the  government  as  a  man  hunts  for  a  lost 
child,  or  a  horse  strayed  or  stolen.  It  was  not  at  home.  It 


Il6  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

was  over  at  Long  Branch,  looking  after  the  business  of  horse- 
racing,  or  down  in  Carolina  stumping  for  Grant,  or  out  west 
with  Delano  in  its  fatherly  concern  for  land  grants  and  In 
dian  affairs.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  all  the  cabinet  ministers, 
except  Belknap,  who  was  probably  very  busy  with  his  post- 
traderships,  were  on  the  stump  in  1872,  electioneering  for 
their  chief,  and  to  keep  their  bread  buttered  four  years  longer  ; 
while  the  President,  spurning  the  example  of  Washington, 
Jefferson  and  Adams,  had  been  heaping  honors  and  emolu 
ments  upon  his  poor  kin,  and  accepting  presents  of  line 
houses  and  tempting  largesses  in  monev  from  men  unknown 
to  fame,  who  were  paid  off  in  fat  places. 

Such  is  the  delectable  and  highly  flavored  feast  to  which 
the  Liberal  Republicans  of  1872  were  invited  ;  and  when 
they  turned  a\vay  from  it  in  sorrow  and  unutterable  disgust, 
and  asserted  their  independence,  they  were  everywhere  de 
nounced  by  the  leaders  of  Grantism  as  political  apostates 
and  rebels.  Senator  Morton  branded  Horace  Greeley  as  a 
traitor,  secretly  in  league  with  Confederate  traitors  of  the 
South,  and  plotting  his  way  into  the  White  House  for  the 
ulterior  purpose  of  undoing  the  work  of  the  war,  re-establish 
ing  slavery,  and  fastening  upon  the  nation  the  rebel  debt. 
And  the  political  vultures  who  hounded  Greeley  to  his  grave 
pursued  Sumner,  and  Trumbull,  and  their  co-laborers,  with 
the  same  hungry  and  unslumbering  political  venom  and  per 
sonal  malice.  In  the  many  political  contests  in  which  I  have 
been  engaged,  whether  in  the  early  times  of  the  abolitionists 
or  during  the  fierce  passions  excited  by  the  civil  war,  I  can 
recall  nothing  which  exceeds  the  unmixed  rancor  and  un 
bridled  animosity  that  inspired  the  Republican  leaders  four 
years  ago  in  their  treatment  of  the  men  who  rebelled  against 
the  party  lash  in  order  to  save  their  own  honor  and  self- 
respect.  And  yet  they  did  not  burn  the  bridges  behind  them. 
The  way  was  left  open  for  their  reunion  with  their  old  party 
friends,  whenever  the  party  itself  should  turn  its  back  upon 
the  organized  roguery  which  had  captured  it ;  and  I  am  quite 
sure  that  ninety-nine  hundredths  of  the  Liberal  Republicans 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM.  117 

of  the  United  States  would  to-day  have  been  found  battling 
in  the  ranks  of  Republicanism,  if  the  party  within  the  past 
four  years  had  thrown  overboard  the  renegade  Democrats 
who  had  become  its  recognized  leaders,  and  proved  itself 
sincere  in  its  demand  for  reform.  Has  this  saving  work  been 
accomplished?  This  is  the  next  question  to  be  considered  in 
the  discussion  upon  which  I  have  entered. 

To  ask  this  question  is  to  answer  it.  But  in  the  interest 
of  explicitness  and  particularity  let  us  give  it  our  attention, 
and,  in  dealing  with  it,  let  us  remember  Senator  Morton's 
declaration  three  or  four  years  ago,  that  "Ours  is  the  best 
civil  service  on  the  planet,"  and  his  assertion  a  few  days  since 
that,  "All  things  considered,  the  present  is  the  purest  and 
best  administration  this  country  has  ever  had."  What  are 
the  actual  facts  which  supply  the  commentary  upon  these  per 
fectly  astounding  statements?  It  can  not  be  denied  that  soon 
after  the  last  inauguration  civil  service  reform  became  a  more 
glaring  political  mockery  than  ever  before.  The  enforce 
ment  of  the  rules  framed  by  the  commission  was  only  an 
occasional  event,  while  their  suspension  was  the  order  of  the 
day.  Governor  Holden,  of  North  Carolina,  who  was  im 
peached,  convicted  and  rendered  incapable  of  holding  any 
office,  was  made  postmaster  at  the  capital  of  that  state. 
Sharp,  a  brother-in-law  of  the  President,  was  appointed 
Marshal  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  just  as  if  no  civil  service 
rules  had  ever  been  heard  of.  Cramer,  another  brother-in- 
law,  disgraced  our  diplomatic  service  as  the  representative 
of  the  government  at  Copenhagen.  Brother-in-law  Casey, 
who  had  taken  on  board  a  government  vessel  the  Grant  mem 
bers  of  the  Louisiana  legislature  to  protect  them  from  arrest 
and  prevent  a  mojority  of  the  body  from  proceeding  to  busi 
ness,  because  the  political  interests  of  the  President  demanded 
this  lawlessness,  and  who  stood  before  the  country  thatched 
with  political  corruption,  was  re-appointed  and  confirmed  as 
collector  of  the  port  of  New  Orleans.  Even  George  William 
Curtis,  so  long  hoping  against  hope,  and  so  faithfully  cling 
ing  to  the  President  through  thick  and  thin,  was  at  last 


Il8  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

obliged  to  resign  his  position  in  disgust,  and  to  declare  that 
the  appointments  of  the  President  showed  "  an  utter  aban 
donment  of  both  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  civil  service  reg 
ulations."  About  the  same  time,  Peter  Cooper  wrote  a  most 
earnest  and  friendly  letter  to  the  President,  begging  him  to 
rescue  the  city  and  state  of  New  York  from  the  custom  house 
rogues  who  had  so  long  disgraced  the  civil  service  and  defied 
the  people.  But  the  President  seemed  entirely  unconscious 
that  anything  was  going  amiss.  At  the  bidding  of  Senator 
Morton  he  removed  Captain  Brouse  from  the  pension  agency 
of  Indiana,  a  wounded  soldier  and  a  faithful  officer,  and  ap 
pointed  in  his  place  Gen.  Terrell,  whose  moral  unfitness  for 
the  place  is  too  well  known  to  be  characterized.  When  Con 
gress  abolished  the  government  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
in  order  to  get  rid  of  Boss  Shepherd,  who  stood  revealed  as 
a  disgraced  public  swindler,  the  President  immediately  ap 
pointed  him  one  of  the  commissioners  of  the  new  District 
government. 

When  the  safe  burglary  criminals  were  on  trial  the  ma 
chinery  of  the  district  attorney's  office  was  employed  to  cheat 
public  justice  ;  and  the  President,  pending  the  trial,  made  a 
most  remarkable  demonstration  upon  the  jury  by  inviting  one 
of  the  defendants  to  join  a  company  of  distinguished  guests 
in  a  feast  at  the  White  House.  Grantism,  pure  and  simple, 
finds  no  better  illustration  than  in  the  case  of  Orville  Grant. 
He  asked  his  brother  to  let  him  know  when  anything  under 
his  control  should  transpire  by  which  he  (Orville)  could  make 
some  money.  The  President  thought  it  right  to  gratify  him, 
and  proceeded  to  designate  certain  post-traderships  which  he 
might  control,  not  because  the  incumbents  of  the  places  were 
incompetent  or  unworthy,  but  that  Orville  should  have  the 
profits,  either  by  levying  blackmail  upon  them  as  the  price 
of  their  retention,  or  by  their  removal,  if  they  should  refuse 
to  be  bled.  The  department  of  justice  was  disgraced  by  con 
tinuing  in  office  Attorney-General  Williams  a  year  and  a 
half  after  it  had  been  proved  that  he  had  appropriated  the 
public  revenue  to  the  private  use  of  himself  and  his  family  ; 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM.  119 

and  this  same  Attorney-General  was  afterwards  appointed 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 
The  real  working  of  "  the  best  civil  service  on  the  planet" 
and  "  the  purest  and  best  administration  this  country  has 
ever  had  "  is  made  beautifully  manifest  in  the  conviction  of 
the  Secretary  of  War,  on  his  own  confession,  of  making  mer 
chandise  of  the  post-traderships  under  his  control,  while  the 
President,  who  had  knowledge  of  his  criminal  acts  four  years 
ago,  accepts  his  resignation  with  "regret,"  and  with  such 
surprising  promptness  as  to  prevent  his  legal  conviction  of 
high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  by  the  Senate.  The  Presi 
dent  stood  by  Secretary  Delano  in  his  disgraceful  perform 
ances  involving  the  management  of  Indian  affairs,  till  forced 
by  public  opinion  to  give  him  up,  and  then  "vindicated" 
him  by  his  customary  farewell  letter  of  approval. 

By  one  of  those  accidents  that  have  now  and  then  checkered 
his  administration,  he  appointed  Bristow  as  his  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  ;  and  after  the  work  of  hunting  down  and  bring 
ing  to  justice  the  whisky  thieves  had  been  resolved  upon  by 
the  new  Secretary,  and  while  the  brave  words,  "Let  no 
gnilty  man  escape,"  were  winning  the  plaudits  of  the  people, 
and  finding  their  way  into  the  party  platforms  as  the  watch 
words  of  reform,  the  President  himself  was  drawing  from  the 
Secretary  and  his  subordinates  whatever  information  his  high 
and  trusted  position  could  command  relative  to  the  prosecu 
tion  of  his  friend  Babcock,  and  placing  it  in  the  hands  of  his 
attorneys,  for  no  other  apparent  purpose  than  that  of  secur 
ing  his  acquittal,  and  defeating  the  execution  of  the  laws  he 
was  sworn  to  support.  According  to  the  sworn  testimony  of 
men  of  high  character,  he  had  no  sooner  discovered  that 
Bristow  was  the  enemy  of  thieves  than  he  resolved^upon  his 
removal ;  and  although  his  purpose  was  temporarily  delayed, 
it  was  not  defeated.  He  seems  to  have  demanded  the  head 
of  Bluford  Wilson  for  kindred  reasons.  The  decapitation  of 
Yaryan  was  another  sacrifice  to  men  who  deserved  to  be  clad 
in  prison  stripes.  Pratt  had  to  walk  the  plank  because  he 
spoke  a  friendly  word  in  behalf  of  Yaryan,  and  was  believed 


I2O  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

to  be  an  honest  man.  Dyer  was  obliged  to  bite  the  dust  for 
no  reason  known  to  the  public,  which  will  naturally  infer  that 
his  sole  offense  was  his  refusal  to  prostitute  his  office  to  the 
use  of  the  guilty.  Henderson  was  stricken  down  for  no 
other  discoverable  reason  than  that  the  courageous  perform 
ance  of  his  official  duty  threatened  to  involve  the  White 
House,  or  such  idolized  friends  of  the  President  as  General 
Babcock.  If  Jewell  was  not  dismissed  from  the  cabinet  be 
cause  he  was  the  friend  of  Bristow  and  his  co-worker  in 
reform,  then  his  cause  of  dismissal  is  inscrutable.  The  ap 
pointment  of  Tyner  as  Jewell's  successor  naturally  enters 
into  the  warp  and  woof  of  the  same  civil  service  fabric,  he 
being  the  facile  instrument  of  Senator  Morton,  the  leader  of 
the  Indiana  delegation  in  the  Cincinnati  convention  in  oppo 
sition  to  Bristow,  and  claiming  also  the  glory  of  having  se 
cured  the  nomination  of  General  Hayes.  When  the  nation 
was  groaning  under  an  enormous  burden  of  debt  and  taxa 
tion,  and  the  representatives  of  the  people  voted  themselves 
salaries  they  had  never  earned,  and  doubled  the  pay  of  the 
President,  he  personally  lobbied  for  the  measure  in  both 
houses  of  Congress,  and  promptly  legalized  the  theft  by  his 
signature.  He  appointed  a  famous  poker-player  as  Minister 
to  England,  and  kept  him  there  till  public  opinion  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  compelled  his  withdrawal,  on  account 
of  his  disgraceful  connection  with  the  Emma  mine  fraud. 
He  withdrew  the  custody  of  government  funds  from  the  house 
of  Barings,  wrho  I  believe  had  held  it  for  generations,  and 
intrusted  them  to  Clews  &  Habicht,  who  have  since  become 
bankrupt,  as  a  reward  for  their  partisan  services,  and  in 
spite  of  warnings  that  this  house  was  untrustworthy.  He 
defended  the  Moiety  system,  by  which  the  revenues  of  the 
country  were  farmed  out  to  political  scullions  for  the  purpose 
of  serving  the  fortunes  of  some  of  his  favorites,  while  Gen 
eral  Babcock,  who  has  been  justly  branded  by  the  press  as 
a  sneak-thief  in  the  methods  employed  by  him  in  securing 
his  acquittal  of  a  high  crime,  is  still  holding  his  position  of 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM.  121 

Chief  of  Engineers  and  Commissioner  of  Public  Buildings 
and  Grounds. 

But  surely  I  need  not  extend  this  itemized  arraignment 
of  Grantism  any  farther.  Let  me  say,  however,  that  by  the 
term  Grantism,  I  mean  Republicanism  under  Grant,  and  in 
full  cooperation  with  him.  The  party  unanimously  indorsed 
him  four  years  ago,  when  all  intelligent  men  knew  him  and 
his  evil  tendencies  almost  as  well  as  they  know  them  to-day. 
In  all  the  state  conventions  of  the  party,  north  and  south, 
east  and  west,  through  all  these  seven  years  and  a  half  of 
misrule  and  profligacy,  his  administration  has  been  unceas 
ingly  indorsed  and  lauded.  Our  state  convention  of  last 
February  declared  that  "  the  administration  of  General  Grant 
commands  our  fullest  confidence  and  approbation,  and  that 
we  especially  commend  him  for  the  example  he  will  leave  to 
his  successors,  of  removing  from  office  those  of  his  own  ap 
pointment  whenever  he  has  found  them  to  be  unfaithful  ;  and 
of  causing  those  who  are  proved  dishonest  to  be  so  prose 
cuted  that  no  guilty  man  should  escape."  As  if  to  empha 
size  this,  and  to  make  its  moral  significance  perfectly  clear, 
the  convention  fulsomely  eulogized  Senator  Morton,  and  I 
believe  unanimously  recommended  his  nomination  for  the 
Presidency.  The  Cincinnati  convention  brought  down  the 
record  still  later,  and  declared  that  "President  Grant  de 
serves  the  continued  and  hearty  gratitude  of  the  American 
people  for  his  patriotism  and  his  immense  services  in  war 
and  in  peace."  And  General  Hayes,  a  month  later,  says 
"  the  resolutions  are  in  accord  with  my  views."  The  mani 
fest  truth  is  that  the  President  and  his  party  are  inseparable. 
Their  union  is  unmistakably  Siamese.  The  party  clings  to 
him  as  a  dying  man  clings  to  life. 

The  Cincinnati  indorsement  of  Grant  was  after  the  expos 
ure  of  the  whisky  rings,  and  the  acceptance  of  Belknap's 
resignation  ;  after  the  trial  of  Babcock,  and  the  shameful  in 
terference  in  his  behalf;  alter  the  disgraceful  conduct  of 
Robeson  and  Delano  and  the  disagreement  of  the  President 
and  Bristow.  The  party  found  nothing  to  condemn  in  the 


122  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

later  misdeeds  of  the  administration,  and  remembered  noth 
ing  amiss  in  its  earlier  record.  It  had  no  fault  to  find  with 
the  ostracism  of  Sumner  and  the  appointment  of  Cramer  and 
Casey  and  Packard  ;  with  upsetting  the  government  of  Lou 
isiana  through  a  drunken  and  corrupt  federal  judge,  and  dis 
persing  the  legislature  of  the  state  with  the  bayonet ;  with 
backing  up  Kellogg  and  Spencer,  and  putting  Billings  in  the 
place  of  Durell  ;  with  encouraging  the  operations  of  Jayne 
and  Sanborn  and  allowing  Orville  Grant  to  make  a  living  by 
the  traffic  in  appointments  ;  and  with  greedily  taking  the  in 
crease  of  one  hundred  per  cent,  on  the  President's  salary, 
and  his  lobbying  for  the  bill  allowing  him  to  do  so,  while 
making  his  administration  an  asylum  for  his  numerous  and 
unsavory  kindred.  All  this  was  meekly  shouldered  by  the 
party  at  Cincinnati,  which  crouched  like  a  spaniel  at  the  feet 
of  the  master  it  had  obsequiously  served  for  seven  years. 
The  melancholy  truth  is,  as  so  admirably  stated  by  the  New 
York  Tribune,  that  "President  Grant  has  dropped  us  by 
easy  stages  to  these  depths  of  shame.  He  has  parenthesized 
in  history  eight  years,  which  will  be  marked  hereafter  as  the 
era  of  personal  government,  and  the  period  of  greed  ;  eight 
years  of  such  official  corruption  and  dishonesty,  such  selfish 
ness  and  shamelessness,  such  low  aims  and  base  purposes, 
such  grasping  avarice  and  eager  overreaching,  such  specu 
lation  in  official  information,  such  bribery  and  such  barter 
and  sale  of  office,  and  such  degradation  of  all  things  which 
the  nation  has  held  to  be  high  and  holv  and  worthy  an  hon- 

O  ./  J 

est  pride,  that  to-day  the  country  hangs  its  head  and  holds 
its  nose,  and  waits  for  this  administration  to  pass."  It  lies 
wallowing  in  the  ditch,  the  spectacle  of  nations,  while  Sena 
tor  Morton,  from  his  serene  mount  of  vision,  pronounces  it 
the  "  best  and  purest  the  country  has  ever  had." 

But  now,  gentlemen,  having  shown  by  irresistible  proofs 
that  the  Liberal  movement  of  1872  was  justified  by  facts  and 
called  for  by  the  times,  and  that  the  Republican  party,  in 
stead  of  retracing  its  steps  and  recovering  its  lost  estate  has 
steadily  gravitated  farther  and  farther  from  its  primal  integ- 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  REFORM.  123 

rity,  it  may  still  be  argued  that  the  nomination  of  Governor 
Hayes  will  cut  the  ugly  thread  of  history  from  behind  it,  and 
launch  it  grandly  on  a  new  and  blessed  departure.  Believ 
ing  as  I  do,  that  the  age  of  miracles  has  passed,  I  find  my 
self  compelled  to  reject  this  view.  I  am  acquainted  with 
Governor  Hayes,  and  believe  him  to  be  honest  and  patriotic, 
and  most  gladly  and  cordially  would  I  support  him  if  any 
Republican  could  explain  to  me  how  his  accidental  selection 
at  Cincinnati  can  make  saints  out  of  the  distinguished  sinners 
who  are  the  recognized  leaders  and  managers  of  the  party 
now,  as  they  were  four  years  ago.  If  you  place  the  hat  of 
an  honest  man  on  the  head  of  a  rogue,  will  the  roguery  in 
stantly  depart?  Every  one  has  heard  the  story  of  Fortunatus. 
He  had  a  wishing  hat,  which  relieved  him  of  the  expense  and 
labor  of  traveling.  By  placing  this  hat  on  his  head  and  wish 
ing  himself  at  a  given  place  he  straightway  found  himself 
there.  Who  would  not  join  in  building  a  monument  to  the 
sorely  needed  genius  who  could  manufacture  a  presidential 
hat  that  would  enable  Governor  Hayes,  by  a  simple  wish,  to 
change  the  nature  of  Morton,  and  Cameron,  and  Butler,  and 
Clayton,  and  Boss  Shepherd,  and  Babcock,  and  brother-in- 
law  Casey,  and  the  rest  of  the  unbaptized  crew  who  are  tax 
ing  their  wits  and  pouring  out  their  money  to  secure  his  elec 
tion,  and  will  darken  the  air  about  the  executive  mansion  on 
the  4th  of  March  if  he  should  succeed?  Such  a  hat,  I  am 
free  to  confess,  would  make  Governor  Hayes  a  pretty  respec 
table  President,  and  he  would  be  able  to  take  up  the  question 
of  reform  and  dispose  of  it  with  tolerable  success.  Unfor 
tunately  no  such  head-gear  can  be  found,  while  the  great 
leader  of  the  party  in  Indiana,  and  the  right-hand  man  of  the 
administration,  tells  us  the  party  has  no  need  of  it,  and  that 
the  men  who  ask  for  reform  are  worse  criminals  than  the 
thieves  they  wish  to  expose  and  punish. 

Here  is  the  ugly  knot  which  Liberal  Republicans  and  a 
good  many  other  Republicans  desire  to  see  untied.  Can  you 
obtain  the  command  of  a  piratical  craft  by  simply  changing 
the  figure-head  of  the  vessel?  You  must  expel  the  pirates 


124  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

and  put  an  honest  crew  in  possession.  This  is  the  truth  in  a 
nutshell,  and  George  William  Curtis  himself  admits  it.  His 
cry  is  "  reform  within  the  party,"  which  he  is  shouting  along 
the  lines  as  he  did  four  years  ago,  as  if  utterly  unmindful  of 
the  fact  that  under  this  battle-cry  our  civil  service  has  become 
as  foul  and  feculent  a  system  of  official  huckstering  and  po 
litical  prostitution  as  our  thoroughly  debauched  party  politics 
could  make  it.  But  he  is  not  blind,  like  Senator  Morton,  to 
the  need  of  reform,  and  he  tells  us  in  Harper's  Weekly  that 
the  only  hope  of  the  party  lies  in  the  power  to  persuade  the 
people  that  it  is  not  hopelessly  corrupt.  He  frankly  confesses 
that  reform  is  only  possible  by  throwing  overboard  the  Grant 
leaders  and  trained  corruption! sts  who  have  brought  the 
party  into  disgrace.  In  all  soberness  I  ask,  is  this  possible? 
Have  the  Republican  masses,  after  their  long  and  patient  serv 
ice  under  the  party  yoke,  the  courage  and  virtue  to  take  their 
old  leaders  by  the  throat?  Will  the  party  chiefs  I  have  named 
meekly  and  penitentially  take  the  back  seats,  while  honest 
and  stainless  men  come  to  the  front?  The  man  who  believes 
all  this  must  have  allowed  his  common  sense  to  pack  its  bag 
gage.  The  Grant  leaders  would  reign  in  any  conceivable 
political  hell  rather  than  serve  in  the  heaven  of  honest 
government.  In  the  manipulation  of  caucuses  and  conven 
tions,  they  have  long  been  masters.  They  are  journeymen 
and  experts  in  the  work  of  politics  as  a  trade.  They  have 
reduced  plunder  and  pelf  to  a  science  and  the  greed  of  clutch 
to  a  fine  art.  Nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  such  a 
reform  as  would  completely  dislodge  these  leaders  and  put 
such  men  as  Bristow  and  Adams  in  their  places,  would  be, 
in  fact,  the  creation  of  a  new  party.  It  would  have  to  be 
preceded  by  a  general  disintegration,  and  it  would  be  quite 
as  absurd  to  consider  it  the  same  party  which  has  ruled  the 
country  since  Grant  came  into  power  as  it  would  have  been 
to  treat  the  Republican  party  of  1856  as  identical  with  the 
old  Whig  party,  which  has  gone  down  to  its  dishonored 
grave.  The  idea,  therefore,  of  making  the  Republican  party 
the  instrument  of  self-purification,  is  not  only  morally,  but 


THE    GOSPEL  OF    REFORM.  125 

logically  absurd.  A  party  once  thoroughly  corrupt,  has  lost 
the  power  to  reform  itself.  Devils  are  not  inclined  to  cast 
out  devils,  and  could  scarcely  be  trusted  with  the  business  if 
they  should  offer  their  services  ;  and  it  is  because  I  entertain 
these  views  and  can  not  escape  their  force,  that  I  sincerely 
desire  to  see  the  machinery  of  the  Republican  party  battered 
into  fragments,  and  the  way  thus  opened  for  a  reformation  of 
parties  on  the  living  questions  of  the  hour,  unembarrassed  by 
the  memories  of  the  past. 

But  let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  desire  to  meet  the 
question  I  am  considering  in  its  complete  length  and  breadth. 
I  do  not  deny  the  exceptional  power  of  one  strong  man,  thor 
oughly  in  earnest  and  thoroughly  armed  with  the  courage  of 
his  opinions.  A  single,  great-hearted,  strong-willed  charac 
ter  may  control  a  mob  or  quell  a  mutiny.  With  a  fertile 
brain,  perfect  courage,  absolute  devotion  to  duty,  and  a 
genius  for  the  work  of  reform,  he  may  scatter  renovating 
ideas,  redeem  a  state  from  misrule,  and  radically  change  the 
face  of  society.  The  country  has  seen  what  one  man  can 
do  in  the  stamping  out  of  the  Tammany  and  Canal  rings  of 
New  York.  If  a  man  no  larger  than  General  Grant  can,  in 
a  few  years,  drag  down  into  disgrace  a  grand  and  powerful 
party,  a  really  great  man,  with  rare  force  of  character, 
passionately  wedded  to  his  work,  and  desperately  resolved 
to  submit  to  no  defeat,  might  so  inspire  the  people  with  his 
own  spirit  of  courage  and  faith  that  a  revolution  in  the  ad 
ministration  of  public  affairs  wrould  be  the  result.  It  is 
folly  and  nonsense  to  pretend  that  Governor  Hayes  is  such  a 
man.  Neither  in  Congress,  nor  as  Governor  of  Ohio,  nor  in 
his  military  service,  has  he  given  the  least  evidence  of  such 
remarkable  traits  of  character.  In  1872,  when  the  ferment 
of  reform  was  threatening  to  rend  the  old  parties,  and  so 
many  Republicans  \vere  turning  away  from  Grantism  in  dis 
gust,  Governor  Hayes  kept  the  quiet  and  even  tenor  of  his 
ways,  uttering  no  rebuke  and  giving  no  sign  of  discontent 
with  the  reigning  order  of  things.  During  the  past  four 
years  of  maladministration  and  party  corruption  no  word 


126  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

has  escaped  his  lips  to  show  that  he  sympathized  with  the 
men  who  have  demanded  reform.  If  at  any  time  he  has  dis 
covered  the  demoralizing  and  downward  tendencies  of  the 
administration,  and  felt  the  necessity  of  bravely  withstand 
ing  them,  he  has  never  told  the  public  of  the  fact.  He  has* 
given  the  country  no  guarantee,  save  his  letter  of  acceptance, 
either  by  word  or  deed,  that  he  will  manfully  wrestle  with 
the  political  rings  that  are  laboring  for  his  election.  The 
country  is  without  any  proof  at  all  that  he  possesses  ''the 
moral  courage  and  sturdy  resolution  to  grapple  with  abuses 
which  have  acquired  the  strength  of  established  custom,  and 
to  this  end  firmly  resist  the  pressure  of  his  party  friends." 
He  has  not  in  any  way  earned  the  "fear  and  hatred  of 
thieves."  The  Boston  Advertiser,  one  of  the  leading  organs 
of  Republicanism  in  New  England,  and  now  his  warm  sup 
porter,  said  of  him  last  year  that  "  he  is  a  man  of  fair  ability, 
correct  in  his  personal  habits,  honest,  sound  in  the  Republi 
can  faith,  but  without  much  force  or  independence."  This 
is  the  exact  truth. 

Parke  Goodwin  is  perfectly  right  in  saying  that  he  was 
nominated  because  it  was  believed  "his  neutrality  of  tint 
would  harmonize  the  most  pronounced  colors."  He  was 
nominated  by  a  convention  containing  a  majority  who  favored 
Blaine,  notwithstanding  his  remarkable  record  as  a  reformer, 
and  who  was  only  defeated  by  a  blunder  of  his  friends.  His 
total  strength  in  the  convention,  in  the  absence  of  combina 
tions,  was  only  68  votes.  Bristow,  the  only  candidate  who 
had  an  unmistakable  record  as  a  reformer,  received  only  126 
votes  out  of  the  756,  while  Governor  Hayes  was  nominated 
at  the  instance  of  a  political  trader  from  Pennsylvania,  who 
seldom  blunders  in  his  party  movements.  Gentlemen,  I  do 
not  utter  a  conjecture,  but  express  a  perfectly  evident  fact, 
when  I  say  that,  if  elected,  he  will  be  the  instrument  of  his 
active  and  influential  friends,  and  the  servant  of  that  mis 
chievous  party  machinery  against  which  he  has  never  yet 
made  any  public  protest.  That  I  am  right  in  this  I  stand 
ready  to  prove  by  the  autocrat  of  the  Republican  party  in 


THE    GOSPEL  OF    REFORM.  127 

Indiana,  whose  testimony  will  be  accepted  as  conclusive. 
"The  administration  of  any  President,"  says  our  distinguished 
senator,  "will  be  in  the  main  what  the  party  which  elected 
him  makes  it.  If  he  breaks  away  from  his  party  the  chances 
are  that  he  will  be  broken  down.  In  a  government  of  par 
ties  like  ours,  the  President  must  have  his  friends.  The  men 
to  whom  he  owes  his  election,  who  have  defended  him  from 
assaults,  to  whom  he  must  look  for  support  in  the  future,  will 
ordinarily  control  his  actions,  and  he  will  do  nothing  offensive 
to  them."  This  is  the  naked  truth,  from  the  highest  Repub 
lican  authority  ;  and  if  it  does  not  perfectly  apply  to  Governor 
Haves  it  can  have  no  application  whatever  to  any  man  who 
has  ever  been  or  ever  will  be  President.  Let  me  ask  you — 
and  I  now  address  myself  more  especially  to  my  old  Repub 
lican  friends — let  me  ask  you  if  in  your  hearts  you  really  be 
lieve  Governor  Hayes,  if  elected,  will  enforce  the  principles 
announced  in  his  letter  of  acceptance?  Do  you  believe  he 
will  turn  Secretary  Chandler  adrift,  the  commander-in-chief 
of  the  Republican  army  in  this  canvass,  because  he  is  now 
spending  his  money,  levying  contributions  upon  his  subor 
dinates,  and  prostituting  the  whole  power  of  his  office  in  the 
interest  of  a  Republican  victory?  Do  you  believe  he  will 
dismiss  Secretary  Cameron,  who  led  the  way  in  his  nomina 
tion  at  Cincinnati,  and  whose  active  partisan  service  of  Gov 
ernor  Hayes  is  a  gross  violation  of  his  declared  principles  as 
to  the  use  of  the  civil  service?  Will  he  do  so  decent  and 
comely  a  thing  as  to  dismiss  James  N.  Tyner  from  the  post- 
office  deparment,  placed  there  at  the  bidding  of  Senator 
Morton  for  the  purpose  of  securing  his  official  help  in  this 
canvass,  which  he  is  giving  freely?  Will  he  put  back  in  the 
treasury  Bristow,  and  Bluford  Wilson,  and  Pratt,  and  Yar- 
yan,  and  thus  invite  the  hostility  of  General  Grant  and  his 
powerful  body  of  friends,  and  incur  the  wrath  of  the  whole 
army  of  whisky  thieves?  Will  he  sweep  out  the  legions  of 
placemen  who  are  now  abusing  the  public  service,  and  fill 
their  places  with  men  selected  solely  on  the  ground  of  their 
fitness,  and  with  no  reference  whatever  to  politics?  Will  he 


128  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

make  it  perfectly  understood  that  senators  and  representa 
tives  shall  no  longer  be  consulted  in  the  dispensation  of  fed 
eral  patronage?  To  every  one  of  these  questions  the  senator 
gives  the  answer,  No,  and  you  all  understand  as  well  as  I  do 
that  the  orthodox  Republicans  of  Indiana  are  not  the  men  to 
differ  with  him  in  opinion. 

And  here,  at  length,  I  reach  my  final  question  involving 
the  propriety  and  honesty  of  a  vote  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks. 
It  must  be  quite  apparent  that  what  I  have  said  has  consid 
erably  smoothed  the  way  to  the  answer  ;  for  if  the  Republican 
party  is  so  hopelessly  demoralized  that  its  reform  is  impossi 
ble,  its  destruction  becomes  a  public  duty  :  and  whoever  so 
regards  it  has  a  right  to  lay"  hold  on  the  only  weapon  which 
can  now  be  employed  for  the  purpose  with  any  hope  of  suc 
cess.  But  I  do  not  rest  the  case  upon  this  point.  I  propose 
to  deal  with  the  question  as  an  independent  topic,  and  in  ap 
proaching  it  I  already  imagine  some  of  my  Republican  friends 
mentally  asking  the  question  which  has  already  been  pro 
pounded  to  me  several  times  in  words  :  How  can  an  old 
anti-slavery  man,  who  fought  the  Democrats  so  zealously  in 
the  early  days  of  abolitionism,  and  poured  out  upon  them 
your  denunciations  so  remorselessly  during  the  war  :  how  can 
you  reconcile  it  to  yourself  to  support  such  men  as  Tilden  and 
Hendricks?  Well,  gentlemen,  I  have  understood  in  differ 
ent  ways,  and  for  years  believed  it  to  be  a  fact,  that  the  war 
is  over.  According  to  my  almanac  the  last  gun  was  fired 
about  eleven  and  a  half  years  ago,  so  that  we  are  now  well 
along  in  the  twelfth  year  of  peace.  Senator  Morton,  in  com 
mon  with  a  number  of  his  brethren,  does  not  know  this.  I 
presume  that  he  will  go  down  to  his  grave  in  the  full  belief 
that  the  "  boys  in  blue  and  the  boys  in  gray  "  are  still  fight 
ing.  At  all  events  he  will  hug  the  fond  thought  to  his 
bosom  that  the  people  of  the  North  and  the  people  of  the 
South  ought  to  feel  towards  each  other,  now  and  hereafter, 
exactly  as  they  did  during  the  bloody  conflict.  With  such 
men  I  have  no  controversy.  They  are  given  over  to  their 
madness,  and  it  defies  all  remedies.  But  I  ask  all  men  who 


THE    GOSPEL  OF    REFORM. 


I29 


love  their  country  and  are  able  to  perform  the  operation  of 
thinking,  why  the  subject  of  our  late  war  should  be  dragged 
into  this  canvass?  It  was  a  bloody  and  devastating  conflict 
between  citizens  and  states  that  had  lived  together  in  peace 
under  a  common  flag,  and  whose  union  hereafter  is  their 
manifest  destiny.  Why  should  any  patriotic  man  seek  to 
keep  alive  its  memories  !  Let  them  fade  away  into  the  re 
ceding  past,  and  the  old  bond  of  union  be  renewed  and  ce 
mented  by  the  rivalries  of  a  common  brotherhood  for  the 
common  weal.  Our  civil  war  has  taken  its  place  in  the  past. 
It  has  gone  before  the  judgment  seat  of  history,  like  the  Mex 
ican  war,  the  war  of  1812,  or  the  war  of  independence  ;  and 
there  is  no  more  propriety  in  discussing  it  in  the  coming 
campaign  than  there  would  be  in  overhauling  the  wars  of  the 
antediluvians.  There  is  even  less  propriety,  for  we  could 
talk  about  these  ancient  wars  without  the  least  danger  of  re 
kindling  old  animosities.  When  our  civil  war  was  upon  us, 
and  the  questions  which  have  since  been  so  grandly  settled 
on  the  side  of  the  Union,  hung  in  perilous  dispute,  I  gave  ut 
terance  to  some  strong  words,  which  I  have  no  desire  to  re 
call.  If  you  can  set  back  the  clock  of  our  politics  and  re 
create  the  circumstances  in  which  I  was  placed,  I  will  reiter 
ate  them.  I  tried  to  breathe  into  the  hearts  of  the  people  the 
spirit  of  war,  and  so  to  influence  public  opinion  as  to  promote 
the  triumph  of  our  arms  and  the  just  settlement  of  the  great 
issue  then  on  trial.  But  why  should  I  repeat  my  old  war 
speeches  in  this  canvass?  Why  should  Senator  Morton  re 
peat  his?  How  long  are  the  political  waters  to  be  troubled 
by  graceless  demagogues  who  so  love  the  honors  and  emol 
uments  of  office  that  they  are  willing  to  clutch  at  them  at  the 
expense  of  the  nation's  peace? 

In  like  manner  let  me  remind  our  Republican  friends  that 
the  slavery  question  is  settled.  I  am  quite  sure,  in  fact,  that 
slavery  has  been  finally  abolished.  I  think  quite  a  number 
of  the  Grant  leaders  have  not  found  it  out,  but  I  bring  them 
the  glad  tidings  to-night.  As  long  ago  as  1863  Mr.  Lincoln's 
proclamation  and  the  confiscation  laws  of  Congress  gave  the 
9 


I3O  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

institution  a  pretty  deadly  stab,  and  the  thirteenth  constitu 
tional  amendment  sent  it  reeling  into  its  bloody  grave.  By 
fundumental  and  irrepealable  law,  slavery  is  destroyed 
forever.  The  fourteenth  amendment  provides  that  the  negro 
shall  henceforth  be  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  armed 
with  the  equal  protection  which  the  law  gives  to  all.  It  de 
clares  that  the  public  debt,  including  the  pensions  and 
bounties  due  for  services  in  putting  down  the  rebellion  shall 
not  be  questioned.  It  further  declares  that  neither  the 
United  States  nor  any  state  shall  pay  or  assume  any  debt  or 
obligation  incurred  in  aid  of  insurrection  or  rebellion,  or  in 
payment  for  the  loss  or  emancipation  of  any  slave  ;  and  the 
fifteenth  amendment  arms  these  black  millions  with  the  bal 
lot.  These  fundamental  provisions  go  down  to  the  bed-rock 
of  the  whole  matter  ;  for  unless  you  can  persuade  two-thirds 
of  Congress  and  three-fourths  of  all  the  states  to  annul  them, 
they  will  be  as  enduring  as  the  republic.  And  as  these 
amendments  are  now  a  part  of  the  platforms  of  all  political 
parties,  the  slavery  question  is  an  absolutely  dead  issue.  The 
overshadowing,  live  issue  of  to-dav  is  reform,  and  the  duty 
which  now  devolves  upon  us  is  to  select  for  the  offices  of 
President  and  Vice-President  the  men  best  fitted  for  the 
work.  The  records  of  the  candidates  on  the  questions  of  war 
and  slavery  are  not  half  so  important  as  the  purification  of  the 
public  service.  We  are  not  now  living  under  the  administra 
tion  of  Pierce  or  Buchanan,  with  the  Dred  Scott  decision  cast 
ing  its  baleful  shadow  over  the  northern  states  and  territories, 
and  the  whole  power  of  the  federal  government  relentlessly 
employed  in  the  enforcement  of  the  fugative  slave  law  of  1850. 
A  large  majority  of  the  men  against  whom  the  abolitionists 
waged  war  twenty-five  years  ago  are  in  their  graves.  The 
Whig  party  is  dead.  Slavery  has  perished,  and  the  Demo 
crats  occupy  the  same  position  respecting  the  new  order  of 
things  as  the  Republicans  and  surviving  abolitionists. 

A  distinguished  public  man  of  Ohio  has  told  us  that 
"  war  legislates."  Our  distinguished  senator  made  the  pub 
lic  confession  a  few  years  ago,  that  the  ''logic  of  events  'r 


THE    GOSPEL  OF    REFORM.  13! 

had  converted  him  from  a  follower  of  Andrew  Johnson  to  a 
disciple  of  Charles  Sumner.  He  has  never  been  the  same 
man  since,  nor  is  the  Democratic  party  the  same  party  now, 
and  inspired  by  the  same  spirit  and  aims,  as  in  the  evil 
days  of  the  past,  when  the  slave  power  of  the  South  was  the 
master  alike  of  both  the  great  parties  of  the  country,  and  com 
pelled  their  leaders  to  recognize  the  fact.  In  his  late  mas 
terly  speech  in  Congress,  Mr.  Lamar  reminds  our  Republican 
leaders  that  "there  has  not  been  a  single  great  measure  in 
the  constitutional  history  of  England,  not  a  single  great 
reform,  which,  after  its  establishment  by  one  party,  was  not, 
in  the  course  of  time,  and  a  very  short  period,  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  party  originally  opposed  to  it."  Shall  we  stu 
pidly  shut  our  eyes  to  the  logic  of  such  facts?  The  devotion 
of  the  Democratic  party  to  slavery  in  the  past  is  no  proof 
whatever  that  it  can  not  be  trusted  with  the  questions  relat 
ing  to  it  that  are  now  finally  settled  by  the  constitution.  The 
Republican  party  in  the  early  period  of  the  war  did  not  aim 
at  the  abolition  of  slavery,  but  was  driven  toward  it  step  by 
step  under  the  pressure  of  necessity.  Its  principles  and  pol 
icy  were  radically  revolutionized  by  events,  and,  except  in 
name,  it  became  in  fact  a  new  party,  with  new  purposes,  and 
animated  by  a  new  spirit.  On  precisely  the  same  principles 
the  transformation  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the  past  is  in 
evitable,  and  we  can  not  possibly  be  mistaken  in  this  conclu 
sion.  We  know  that  the  transformation  is  going  on  and  has 
already  made  great  progress,  and  that  no  party  was  ever 
strong  enough  to  get  away  from  the  thraldom  of  unmanage 
able  facts.  The  logic  of  war  reshapes  and  reinspires  parties,, 
just  as  the  logic  of  events  has  converted  so  many  political 
sinners. 

The  folly  of  attempting  to  find  a  political  scare-crow  in 
the  record  of  Tilden  and  Hendricks  on  the  slavery  question 
is  amusingly  illustrated  in  the  late  key-note  speech  of  our 
senator.  He  charges  that  Governor  Hendricks  opposed  the 
escape  of  slaves  who  came  into  our  lines  during  the  war. 
In  the  early  period  of  the  war  Governor  Morton  occupied  the 


132  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

same  position,  and  so  did  the  administration  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
while  our  commanding  generals  frequently  restored  fugitives 
to  their  rebel  masters.  He  says  Governor  Hendricks,  in 
1867,  was  opposed  to  allowing  negroes  to  sit  on  juries  and 
hold  office.  Governor  Morton  held  the  same  opinions,  and 
avowed  them  only  two  years  before.  He  says  Governor 
Hendricks  opposed  the  arming  of  negroes  as  soldiers.  Gov 
ernor  Morton  at  first  agreed  with  him,  and  Caleb  B.  Smith, 
Mr.  Lincoln's  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  said  it  would  be  a 
disgrace  to  the  nation.  He  says  that  Governor  Hendricks 
made  a  speech  in  the  constitutional  convention  of  1850  in 
favor  of  the  i3th  article,  excluding  ne'groes  from  the  state. 
Governor  Morton  voted  for  that  article,  in  common  with  the 
great  body  of  the  people  of  the  state.  He  charges  Tilden 
and  Hendricks  with  favoring  the  peace  resolution  in  the  Chi 
cago  convention  of  1864,  which  is  successfully  denied  ;  but 
Governor  Morton  himself,  a  year  afterwards,  made  so  thor 
oughly  sound  a  Democratic  speech  at  Richmond,  that  the 
men  he  now  styles  "  Confederate  Democrats"  published  it 
as  a  campaign  document  by  the  hundred  thousand  for  years 
following  in  several  states  of  the  Union.  He  says  Governor 
Hendricks  favored  the  fugitive  slave  law  of  1850.  So  did 
the  author  of  all  the  key-notes,  for  he  was  then  a  Democrat, 
and  tried  to  raise  a  rebellion  in  the  ranks  of  the  party  in  the 
Old  Burnt  District  because  it  supported  me  for  Congress 
after  I  had  voted  against  the  fugitive  slave  act  and  the  com 
promise  measures  of  the  Thirtv-First  Congress.  I  submit 
that  the  senator's  proverbial  fondness  for  raking  up  the  ashes 
of  the  past  should  not  have  led  him  into  the  political  grave 
yard  of  prominent  Democrats.  His  own  chosen  line  of  ar 
gument  not  only  shows  that  he  himself  is  totally  disqualified 
for  office,  but  that  nearly  all  the  real  leaders  of  Republican 
ism  are  in  the  same  unhappy  condition.  General  Grant 
himself  was  a  pro-slavery  Democrat,  voting  for  Buchanan  in 
1860,  and  never  becoming  a  Republican  till  his  eyes  were 
anointed  by  the  offer  of  the  Presidency,  in  two  successive 
installments.  General  Butler  has  a  record  still  less  immacu- 


THE    GOSPEL  OF    REFORM.  133 

late,  having  voted  for  Jeff  Davis  fifty-eight  times  in  the  fa 
mous  Charleston  convention.  According  to  my  recollection, 
Simon  Cameron  was  never  understood  to  be  a  very  reliable 
abolitionist.  Indeed,  if  no  men  are  now  to  be  trusted  but 
those  who  can  show  a  pure  and  undefiable  abolition  record 
for  the  past  twenty-five  years,  our  country  is  in  a  pretty  bad 
way,  for  it  would,  in  many  cases,  require  a  search  warrant 
to  find  such  men,  even  in  the  Republican  party. 

But  will  the  South  be  safe  under  the  administration  of 
Tilden  ?  Can  the  freedmen  safely  be  committed  to  the  guard 
ianship  of  the  old  slave  masters?  I  answer  this  question  in 
the  language  of  the  ablest  political  journal  in  the  United 
States,  and  a  supporter  of  Governor  Hayes:  "Our  own 
solemn  belief  is  that  the  less  said  on  this  point  on  the  Repub 
lican  side  the  better ;  that  the  outrage  argument  serves  and 
can  serve  the  purpose  of  nobody  in  this  canvass  but  the  Re 
publican  knaves,  and  that  the  probabilities  are  that  the  South 
will  be  more  peaceful  under  Tilden  than  under  Hayes,  and 
this  for  reasons  which  lie  on  the  surface.  Tilden  is  not  a 
weak  or  foolish  man.  He  will  have  no  motive  for  tolerating 
disorders  at  the  South,  nor  will  his  leading  followers.  On 
the  contrary,  they  will  perceive  clearly  the  importance  of 
tranquility  in  that  region,  to  the  stability  of  their  hold  on 
power  in  the  North,  while  these  disorders  will  actually  con 
stitute  nearly  the  whole  political  capital  of  the  Republican 
Conklings,  Mortons,  Chandlers,  and  Cornells,  with  whose 
support  Hayes  is,  it  seems,  to  be  saddled."  The  truth  of 
this  is  patent  to  every  man's  unbiased  common  sense.  The 
great  need  of  the  South  to-day  is  deliverance  from  the  horde 
of  thieves  and  demagogues  who  have  been  fastened  like 
leeches  upon  the  welfare  of  the  people  and  backed  in  their 
misdeeds  by  the  whole  power  of  the  administration.  The 
Hamburg  massacre  and  kindred  displays  of  rapine  and  law 
lessness  admit  of  no  defense,  whatever  the  provocations 
may  have  been  ;  but  it  is  needless  to  deny  that  there  have 
been  provocations,  and  that  there  are  two  sides  to  the  out 
rage  controversy.  Take  the  case  of  Alabama.  The  whole 


134  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

federal  patronage  of  the  state  and  the  use  of  the  United 
States  army  were  turned  over  to  George  E.  Spencer,  a  thor 
oughly  corrupt  and  unprincipled  political  adventurer,  to  en 
able  him  to  retain  his  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Thus 
•equipped  for  his  work,  he  and  his  friends  bought  legislators 
with  federal  appointments  ;  sent  marshals  and  revenue  offi 
cers,  accompanied  by  regular  troops,  to  run  off  voters  from 
the  counties  where  the  opposition  to  him  was  strongest ;  pros 
tituted  the  courts  by  arresting  Democratic  members  of  the 
legislature  in  order  to  prevent  a  quorum  ;  used  the  machin 
ery  of  the  custom  house  and  revenue  offices  in  breaking  up 
the  General  Assembly  and  getting  up  two  rival  bodies,  while 
the  money  to  pay  for  these  extraordinary  performances  was 
obtained  by  embezzlement  from  the  postoffice  at  Mobile.  In 
the  light  of  these  facts  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  state  is  now 
overwhelmingly  Democratic,  while  the  gratifying  fact  greets 
us  that  order  has  gradually  asserted  itself  throughout  the 
.state,  as  the  power  of  the  plunderers  has  declined.  Look  at 
the  state  of  Mississippi.  In  Vicksburg  the  whites  paid  99  per 
cent,  of  the  taxes,  and  the  negroes  assessed  and  handled  the 
money.  As  a  consequence,  the  debt  of  the  city,  which,  in 
1869,  was  $13,000,  rose  in  five  years  to  $1,400,000,  while  the 
population  was  only  eleven  thousand,  and  more  than  half  of 
the  inhabitants  were  colored.  A  ring  composed  of  carpet 
bag  adventurers  and  ignorant  black  men  of  the  most  corrupt 
character  controlled  the  executive  offices  and  courts,  and 
grew  rich  by  forgery  and  fraud.  These  rings  were  sustained 
by  the  whole  power  of  the  Republican  administration  at 
Washington.  The  state  of  South  Carolina  supplies  us  with 
facts  equally  startling.  I  can  not  go  into  the  details,  but 
they  are  known  to  the  country.  It  is  only  necessary  to  say 
that  after  the  state  had  been  plundered  and  devastated  by 
the  black  and  white  scoundrels  who  so  long  controlled  her 
fortunes,  and  Governor  Chamberlain  had  succeeded  in  in 
augurating  the  work  of  reform,  the  representatives  of  the  fed 
eral  administration  demonstrated  their  friendship  for  organ 
ized  rascality  and  ruffianism  by  accusing  Gov.  Chamberlain 


THE    GOSPEL  OF    REFORM.  135 

of  leaning  toward  Democracy,  and  condemning  him  for  re 
fusing  commissions  to  such  political  reprobates  as  Whipper 
and  Moses,  Can  any  man  feel  surprised  that  outrages  should 
spring  out  of  such  a  soil  ?  Can  men  expect  to  sow  the  wind  and 
not  reap  the  whirlwind?  No  Christian  or  even  civilized  man 
will  defend  the  deeds  of  lawlessness  that  disgrace  so  many 
states  of  the  South,  nor  can  he  defend  the  political  and  moral 
outrages  that  have  been  their  chief  provocation.  What  is 
the  remedy?  Shall  we  madly  seek  it  in  a  continuation  of 
Grantism  and  the  rule  of  such  men  as  Casey,  Packard,  Dur- 
rel,  Kellogg,  Ames,  Whipper  and  Moses?  Can  the  election 
of  another  Republican  President  bring  order  and  peace  and 
honest  government  to  the  sorely  tried  people  of  the  South, 
black  or  white?  We  have  had  a  Republican  President  and 
a  Republican  congress  for  nearly  eight  years,  and  yet  the 
chiefs  of  the  party,  who  represent  the  South  as  in  a  perfectly 
deplorable  condition,  tell  us  that  a  continuance  of  the  same 
party  in  power  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the 
people,  and  especially  the  colored  race.  President  Grant 
himself  tells  us  that  "  Mississippi  is  governed  to-day  by 
officials  chosen  through  fraud  and  violence,  such  as  would 
scarcely  be  accredited  to  savages,  much  less  to  a  civilized 
and  Christian  people,"  and  Senator  Morton's  outrage  com 
mittee,  with  Senator  Boutwell  at  its  head,  declares  in  its  late 
congressional  report  that  the  state,  which  last  year  was  in  a 
condition  of  peace,  is  now  so  given  over  to  incurable  anarchy 
after  a  ten  years'  trial  of  Republican  reconstruction,  that  we 
may  be  obliged  to  remand  it  to  territorial  government ! 
Gentlemen,  could  there  possibly  be  a  stronger  argument  in 
favor  of  a  change  of  administration?  Could  any  fact  stand 
out  more  palpably  on  the  background  of  the  past  than  the 
absolute  need  of  a  new  and  wiser  policy,  and  new  and  wiser 
men  to  administer  it?  The  result  of  Republican  rule,  in  fact, 
has  been  to  array  the  two  races  of  the  South  in  deadly  hostil 
ity,  instead  of  making  them  friends  and  brethren.  In  the 
states  containing  the  largest  negro  element  and  under  Re 
publican  rule,  violence  and  disorder  have  largely  prevailed 


136  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

since  the  close  of  the  war ;  while  in  the  conservative  and 
Democratic  states  order  and  peace  have  been  the  normal 
condition  of  the  people.  What  we  now  want  is  a  new  dis 
pensation,  which  shall  blot  out  the  color  line  in  politics, 
soften  and  subdue  the  antagonism  so  long  fostered  by  white 
demagogues,  divide  the  colored  vote  between  the  parties  of 
the  South  as  the  white  vote  is  already  divided,  and  thus 
make  the  people  of  the  states  lately  in  revolt,  in  deed  and  in 
heart,  one  people.  All  this,  of  course,  must  be  the  work  of 
time  ;  but  the  agencies  can  be  wisely  set  to  work  which  will 
accomplish  it,  and  thus  perfectly  solve  the  problem  of  a  re 
stored  Union  by  completely  removing  all  the  causes  of  strife. 
But  the  question  is  asked,  "  Is  Governor  Tilden  a  genuine 
reformer?  Would  he  prove  himself  morally  trustworthy  in 
the  high  office  to  which  he  aspires  ?  "  The  Republican  leaders 
answer  the  question  with  a  very  indignant  negative.  They 
make  the  gravest  of  charges,  both  against  his  loyalty  and  his 
integrity,  and  they  attempt  to  sustain  them  by  very  remarkable 
proofs.  For  example,  they  introduce  the  testimony  of  the  New 
York  Times,  and  other  leading  journals,  which  flatly  give  the 
lie  to  their  current  calumnies  by  their  statements  four  or  five 
years  ago,  when  Governor  Tilden  was  making  his  magnificent 
fight  against  Tammany.  Do  the  Kepublican  leaders  believe 
they  can  convict  him  of  the  frightful  crimes  with  which  they 
charge  him  on  the  evidence  of  impeached  witnesses?  They 
also  attempt  to  make  out  their  case  on  the  testimony  of  Dem 
ocratic  newspapers  which  abused  Governor  Tilden  before  his 
nomination,  when  he  was  likely  to  be  in  the  way  of  their 
favorite  candidate,  while  these  same  newspapers  are  now 
zealously  supporting  him,  and  thus  practically  confessing 
that  they  did  not  speak  the  truth  in  the  fierce  diatribes  they 
had  uttered  previous  to  the  St.  Louis  convention.  General 
Harrison,  the  other  day,  in  his  Danville  speech,  showed  his 
appreciation  of  the  popular  intelligence  by  parading  this  sort 
of  evidence  and  expecting  it  to  be  believed  by  his  audience. 
But  let  us  refer  very  briefly  to  some  of  these  charges.  We 
are  told  by  the  Republican  authorities  that  Governor  Tilden 


THE    GOSPEL  OF    REFORM.  137 

is  a  secessionist.  General  Harrison  makes  this  charge,  as 
he  made  it  four  years  ago  against  Horace  Greeley ;  and  it  is 
as  false  now  as  it  was  then.  It  is  not  only  untrue,  but  I  am 
sorry  to  believe  that  General  Harrison  knows  it  to  be  so. 
There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  among  American  statesmen 
now,  as  there  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  government,  on  the 
question  of  state  rights  and  federal  supremacy.  Governor 
Tilden,  I  believe,  belongs  to  the  Democratic  or  JefFersonian 
school  of  statesmen,  and  of  course  rejects  the  constitutional 
theories  of  Hamilton  and  the  federalists  ;  but  that  he  is  a  se 
cessionist  in  the  sense  of  disloyalty  to  the  national  flag,  or 
that  he  recognizes  the  right  of  a  state  to  go  out  of  the  Union 
at  its  own  sweet  will,  with  no  power  in  the  nation  to  hold  it 
in  its  place,  is  a  pure  invention.  This  is  not  a  matter  of 
opinion,  but  of  fact ;  for  when  the  civil  war  came,  Governor 
Tilden  was  actively  on  the  side  of  the  Union,  doing  an  hon 
orable  part  by  his  influence  and  money  in  sending  men  into- 
the  field,  and  exerting  himself  in  holding  in  check  the  dis 
loyal  element  in  his  own  party,  when  it  threatened  an  organ 
ized  opposition  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  He  was  also 
the  friend  and  adviser  of  Lincoln.  This  is  my  commentary 
upon  the  beautiful  mosaic  of  mingled  metaphysics  and  petti 
fogging  which  General  Harrison  so  artfully  weaves  together 
in  the  hope  of  showing  the  disloyalty  of  the  Democratic  can 
didate  in  this  campaign. 

Another  charge  is  that  Governor  Tilden  was  the  leading 
counsel  for  the  credit  mobilier,  and  gave  his  opinion  in  favor 
of  the  legality  of  the  scheme.  Governor  Tilden  is  an  emi 
nent  lawyer,  and  has  had  great  experience  in  the  manage 
ment  of  railroad  cases.  It  was  not  strange  that  the  Union 
Pacific  Railroad  Company  should  take  his  counsel  as  to  its 
legal  right  to  create  a  fiscal  agency  composed  of  a  portion  of 
the  members  of  the  company,  for  the  purpose  of  taking  charge 
of  the  construction  of  the  road.  As  a  naked  legal  question, 
I  think  it  is  agreed  among  lawyers  that  the  company  had  the 
right.  I  have  not  examined  the  evidence  in  the  case  re 
cently,  but  if  Governor  Tilden  gave  that  opinion  as  a  lawyer, 


138  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

I  do  not  see  that  it  convicts  him  of  any  high  crime.  If  he  ad 
vised  the  company  that  it  had  the  right,  through  the  ma 
chinery  called  the  credit  mobilier,  to  rob  the  treasury  of  mil 
lions,  let  the  charge  be  squarely  made,  and  let  the  proof  be 
produced.  The  curious  fact  is  that  Republican  politicians 
should  allude  to  this  question  at  all.  With  a  single  excep 
tion  the  representative  men  and  eminent  Christian  statesmen 
who  auctioned  off  their  consciences  to  this  great  corporation 
were  members  of  the  Republican  party.  They  gave  no 
opinions  as  to  the  legality  of  the  scheme,  but  they  prosti 
tuted  their  political  and  official  influence  to  the  base  greed  of 
gain  by  personally  joining  in  a  gigantic  fraud  upon  the  na 
tional  treasury.  Of  this  fraud  Governor  Tilden  is  not  guilty, 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  if  the  Republican  leaders  in  this  can 
vass  had  taken  counsel  of  their  prudence  they  would  have 
studiously  avoided  any  allusion  to  the  transaction  with  which 
their  party  relations  are  so  exceedingly  delicate  and  tender. 
I  notice  one  further  charge,  namely,  that  Governor  Til- 
den  did  not  begin  his  war  on  the  Tammany  ring  as  soon  as 
he  should  have  done.  We  are  told  that  he  was  too  tardy 
and  hesitating,  and  waited  till  the  fight  was  pretty  well  under 
way,  with  an  assured  prospect  of  victory,  before  he  entered 
upon  his  grand  work.  The  proof  of  this  charge  is  the  per 
fectly  worthless  testimony  to  which  I  have  already  alluded. 
Like  the  charge  last  noted,  it  also  comes  from  the  leaders  of 
a  party  which  not  only  hesitates  and  falters  in  the  prosecu 
tion  of  its  own  thieves,  but  throws  around  them  its  protec 
tion,  and  drives  from  power  the  men  who  demand  their  pun 
ishment.  Governor  Tilden,  through  his  unexampled  labors 
and  matchless  courage,  sent  to  prison  or  into  exile  the  mu 
nicipal  pirates  of  the  most  povverfal  organization  of  rogues 
and  conspirators  our  country  has  known,  Defying  all  oppo 
sition,  and  braving  all  dangers,  he  did  it,  and  the  pitiful 
whine  is  now  heard  that  he  was  too  slow  in  beginning  the 
work.  But  the  men  who  urge  this  plea  are  the  defenders  of 
an  administration  which  still  leaves  General  Babcock  in  the 
undisturbed  possession  of  two  important  offices,  while  not  a 


THE    GOSPEL  OF    REFORM.  139 

man  of  these  Republican  leaders  has  the  courage  to  denounce 
the  action  of  the  President  in  driving  out  of  office  Secretary 
Bristow  and  his  associates  who  were  so  manfully  engaged  in 
the  work  of  reform. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  little  faith  in  a  political  organization 
whose  leaders,  like  General  Harrison,  raise  the  cry  of  reform 
while  there  is  not  virtue  enough  in  it  to  keep  a  single  reformer 
in  any  important  position,  and  who,  while  quoting  scripture 
to  prove  that  "  offenses  must  needs  come,"  coolly  tell  us  that 
the  motto  of  the  party  is,  "  Woe  unto  that  man  by  whom  the 
offense  cometh."  As  for  myself,  regarding  the  question  of 
reform  as  the  overshadowing  one  in  this  canvass,  I  would 
have  supported  General  Bristow  if  he  had  been  nominated  at 
Cincinnati.  Aside  from  his  remarkable  fight  against  the 
whisky  thieves,  he  was  not  very  well  known  to  the  country  at 
large  ;  but  this  brief  episode  in  his  official  life  flashed  forth 
such  traits  of  manliness,  intrepidity  and  evident  devotion  to 
the  honor  of  the  public  service,  that  I  would  have  been  will 
ing  to  trust  him.  Many  thousands  who  are  now  rallying 
around  the  Democratic  banner  would  have  done  likewise  ; 
but  the  facts  which  inspire  my  faith  in  Governor  Tilden  are 
ten-fold  more  assuring  than  those  which  have  made  General 
Bristow  so  honorably  conspicuous.  Carl  Schurz,  who  is  now 
zealously  supporting  Governor  Hayes,  admits  that  the  elec 
tion  of  Governor  Tilden  would  be  followed  by  the  sweeping 
out  of  the  corrupt  officials  and  combinations  which  now  dis 
honor  the  public  service.  Parke  Godwin,  who,  in  the  qual 
ities  of  intelligence  and  high  integrity,  is  the  peer  of  any  man 
in  the  Republican  party,  and  who  has  been  intimately  ac 
quainted  with  Governor  Tilden  for  nearly  forty  years,  says 
he  has  never  had  the  slightest  occasion  to  suspect  his  abso 
lute  integrity  of  purpose  and  sincerity  of  conviction,  and  that 
in  all  the  relations  of  private  life  he  is  purity  itself.  I  accept 
the  testimony  of  these  witnesses,  and  reject  the  reckless  and 
unsupported  declarations  of  Senator  Morton  that  Governor 
Tilden  is  a  railroad  wrecker,  a  rebel  and  a  thief. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  let  me  remark  that,  in  arraigning 


140  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

the  administration  of  General  Grant  and  the  leaders  of  the 
Republican  party,  I  have  intended  no  attack  upon  the  honest 
and  intelligent  masses  who  still  follow  its  flag,  and  still  hope 
to  redeem  it  from  dishonor.  In  some  other  organization,  and 
under  other  leaders,  they  will  yet  perform  as  honorable  a 
service  as  they  have  already  rendered  in  wisely  solving  the 
great  problems  of  the  past.  Neither  would  I  pluck  a  single 
laurel  from  the  brow  of  the  party  in  the  days  of  its  glory, 
when  its  great  hosts  were  led  by  such  men  as  Sumner,  Sew- 
ard,  Greeley,  Lincoln  and  Chase.  I  was  with  it  and  of  it  in 
all  its  grand  achievements  ;  and  no  man  can  be  prouder  than 
myself  of  its  glorious  record,  and  no  man  forsook  it  in  1872 
with  more  sincere  regret.  But  when  I  saw  that  its  great 
work  was  done,  that  the  marvellous  energy  it  displayed  dur 
ing  the  war  had  been  turned  into  the  channels  of  corruption 
and  plunder,  with  the  startling  results  I  have  attempted  to 
depict,  and  that  the  devil  had  safely  intrenched  himself  in  the 
works  that  had  been  built  to  bombard  him,  I  parted  from  the 
friends  of  a  lifetime,  whose  love  was  then  turned  into  hate 
and  scorn,  and  entered  upon  a  fight  for  political  reform  which 
I  am  resolved  to  prosecute  to  the  end. 


THE  FRAUD  OF  1876. 


DELIVERED  AT  INDIANAPOLIS  ON  THE  STH  OF  JANUARY,  1877. 


[Mr.  Julian  had  spent  a  month  in  New  Orleans  as  one  of  the  men  deputed 
to  look  after  the  counting  of  the  Louisiana  vote.  He  thoroughly  overhauled 
the  questions  involved,  and  carefully  kept  his  eye  on  the  "  visiting  statesmen  " 
on  the  other  side,  whose  mission  of  evil  he  clearly  exposes  in  connection  with 
his  analysis  of  the  character  and  performances  of  the  Louisiana  u  Returning 
Board."] 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Fellow-Citizens  of  Indiana:  The  re 
markable  political  contest  of  the  year  just  closed  has  been 
followed  by  very  serious  and  unexpected  complications.  The 
condition  of  public  affairs  is  well  fitted  to  awaken  general 
anxiety  and  alarm,  and  calls  for  the  best  thought  and  high 
est  endeavor  of  every  citizen.  I  believe  no  intelligent  man 
can  disguise  from  himself  the  fact  that  the  crisis  we  have 
reached  is  profoundly  solemnized  by  tokens  of  national  dan 
ger  ;  and  I  must  not  enter  upon  my  appointed  task  to-day 
without  confessing  my  inability  to  perform  it,  and  my  regret 
that  it  was  not  committed  to  abler  hands.  Most  fervently  do 
I  wish  that  I  could  point  the  safe  way  through  the  dangers 
which  cloud  the  political  sky,  and  menace  the  peace  of  our 
country  ;  but  I  must  content  myself  with  analyzing  the  par 
ticular  subject  with  which  I  am  to  deal,  and  simply  express 
ing,  in  conclusion,  my  individual  convictions  as  to  the  duty 
of  the  hour. 

Soon  after  the  late  Presidential  election,  when  Democratic 
rejoicing  was  exchanged  for  the  chilling  apprehension  of  de 
feat  and  disaster  through  the  action  of  the  Louisiana  return 
ing  board,  the  chairman  of  the  National  Democratic  Com 
mittee  requested  sundry  gentlemen  of  the  Northern  States  to 
repair  to  the  city  of  New  Orleans  in  the  interest  of  "  peace, 


142  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

and  a  fair  and  honest  return"  of  the  vote  cast  in  that  state. 
The  President  of  the  United  States  ordered  the  presence  of 
an  imposing  military  force  "  to  preserve  peace  and  good  or 
der,  and  to  see  that  the  proper  and  legal  boards  of  canvassers 
are  unmolested  in  the  performance  of  their  duties."  He  de 
clared,  in  this  military  order,  that  4i  should  there  be  any 
ground  of  suspicion  of  a  fraudulent  count  on  either  side,  it 
should  be  reported  and  denounced  at  once,"  and  that  "  no 
man  worthy  of  the  office  of  President  should  be  willing  to 
hold  it,  if  counted  in  or  placed  there  by  fraud."  He  also  ap 
pointed  a  number  of  prominent  public  characters  and  repre 
sentative  men  in  the  party  with  which  he  is  associated  to 
visit  the  state  of  Louisiana,  "  to  see  that  the  board  of  can 
vassers  make  a  fair  count  of  the  vote  actually  cast,"  and  ex 
pressed  the  hope  that  "  fair  men  of  both  parties11  would  at 
tend  to  this  duty.  The  returning  board  itself  so  far  recog 
nized  the  gravity  of  the  situation  and  the  wide-spread  dis 
trust  of  its  integrity,  that  an  official  invitation  was  extended 
to  the  visitors  from  distant  states  of  the  Union  to  attend  its 
sessions,  while  canvassing  the  returns  and  ascertaining  the 
result  of  a  Presidential  election  in  Louisiana. 

These  are  very  remarkable  proceedings.  They  have  no 
precedent  in  the  history  of  American  politics,  and  they  bear 
witness  to  the  fearful  decay  of  public  virtue,  and  the  alarm 
ing  drift  of  public  affairs  toward  abnormal  and  revolutionary 
methods.  At  whose  door  lies  the  just  responsibility?  Who 
is  to  blame  for  the  atmosphere  of  suspicion  which  now  covers 
the  land,  and  the  feeling  of  national  peril  which  recalls  so 
painfully  the  opening  of  the  year  1861  ?  The  answer  to  these 
questions  is  not  unknown  to  the  people.  The  present  gov 
ernment  of  the  state  of  Louisiana  was  founded  in  flagrant 
usurpation  and  bare-faced  fraud.  It  was  conceived  in  the 
illegal  order  of  a  drunken  and  corrupt  federal  judge,  and 
midwived  by  the  political  knaves  and  traders  who  controlled 
the  national  administration  four  years  ago,  as  they  control  it 
to-day.  While  the  people  of  Louisiana  have  been  prostrate 
and  helpless  under  the  heel  of  federal  tyranny,  the  returning 


THE  FRAUD  OF   1876.  143 

board  has  been  the  vile  instrument  of  that  tyranny  in  the 
furtherance  of  its  baleful  purposes,  which  it  has  sought  to 
drape  over  under  the  forms  of  law.  It  is  the  creature  of  the 
same  organized  political  rapacity  which  has  trampled  down 
law  and  insulted  decency  in  the  states  of  the  South  during 
the  past  eight  years.  Under  the  act  creating  this  board,  its 
members  hold  their  places  for  life,  with  power  to  appoint  their 
successors.  There  is  no  appeal  from  their  decision,  whatever 
it  may  be,  according  to  the  ruling  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
state,  and  no  accountability  to  the  people  for  their  acts.  Al 
though  it  is  a  tribunal  of  special  and  limited  jurisdiction  and 
its  acts,  whether  ministerial  or  judicial,  are  to  be  construed 
strictly,  and  are  absolutely  void  if  not  authorized  by  the  la\v 
from  which  they  derive  all  their  power,  yet,  according  to 
the  authority  cited,  there  is  no  redress  against  its  rulings, 
however  defiantly  they  may  transcend  its  jurisdiction  or 
trample  justice  under  its  feet.  For  any  reason  or  for  no  rea 
son  at  all,  it  may  count  in  or  count  out  the  vote  of  any  parish 
or  precinct  in  the  state,  and  thus  arbitrarily  determine  the 
character  of  the  government  under  w^hich  her  people  are  to 
live,  contrary  to  their  choice,  and  the  character  of  the  national 
administration  for  four  years,  should  it  depend  on  the  vote  of 
the  state.  While  the  guilt  of  the  board  in  an  act  so  heaven 
daring  would  be  multiplied  by  the  millions  whose  voices  it 
would  stifle,  these  millions  would  be  utterly  without  remedy,  t 
even  in  the  congress  of  the  nation,  according  to  the  leaders 
of  the  Republican  party. 

And  who  are  the  men  constituting  this  autocratic  if  not 
omnipotent  institution  of  the  Republican  party  of  Louisiana, 
concocted  in  the  worst  days  of  carpet-bag  government,  and 
for  the  most  nefarious  purposes?  Twro  of  them  are  white 
men  and  two  colored.  They  are  the  same  men  who  sat 
upon  the  board  in  1874,  anc*  after  the  election  in  that  year 
took  the  majority  of  votes  aw7ay  from  one  side  and  gave 
it  to  the  other  by  "unjust,  arbitrary  and  illegal  action," 
as  admitted  by  a  Republican  congressional  committee,  of 
which  one  William  A.  Wheeler  was  a  member.  They 


144  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

are  all  members  of  the  Republican  party,  and  one  of  them 
holds  a  custom-house  office  under  the  spoils -hunting  sys 
tem  of  the  present  administration.  J.  Madison  Wells,  the 
president  of  the  board,  who  was  elected  Governor  of  Lou 
isiana  under  the  reconstruction  policy  of  President  Johnson, 
was  summarily  ejected  from  that  office  in  1857  by  General 
Sheridan,  for  violating  an  act  of  the  legislature  respect 
ing  the  repair  of  her  levees,  and  seeking  to  prostitute  the 
funds  of  the  state  to  partisan  purposes.  General  Sheridan 
branded  him  as  a  "  political  trickster  and  a  dishonored  man," 
and  charged  him  with  "subterfuge  and  political  chicanery." 
He  declared  that  "his  conduct  had  been  as  sinuous  as  the 
mark  left  in  the  dust  by  the  movement  of  a  snake,"  and  that 
he  had  "not  one  friend  who  is  an  honest  man."  After  a 
stay  in  New  Orleans  of  over  three  weeks,  and  mingling 
freely  with  the  people  when  not  engaged  in  watching  the 
action  of  the  returning  board,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  indors 
ing  the  statement  of  General  Sheridan  as  true.  Governor 
Wells  is  not  only  a  journeyman  and  expert  in  rascality, 
through  long  years  of  training  and  experience,  but  he  is  a 
scoundrel  aboriginally  ;  and  in  saying  this,  I  believe  I  simply 
give  expression  to  the  general  sentiment  of  the  state.  An 
derson,  the  other  white  man  on  the  board,  is  not  quite  so 
vicious.  The  element  of  humanity  is  not  so  fatally  left  out 
£>f  his  composition.  He  is  not  so  cold-blooded.  If  placed 
in  command  of  a  pirate  ship  he  might  falter  in  some  emer 
gency  which  his  more  intreuid  and  satanic  companion  on  the 
board  would  enjoy  as  a  luxury.  But  he  is  not  wanting  in  the 
qualities  which  have  made  the  returning  board  famous,  for 
he  is  a  thoroughly  accomplished  knave  and  swindler.  He 
counts  well,  and  is,  in  a  word,  the  fit  companion  and  associ 
ate  in  office  of  the  president  of  the  body.  Cassanave,  one  of 
the  colored  members  of  the  board,  is  an  undertaker  by  occu 
pation,  and  was  a  slaveholder  before  the  war.  He  is  a  man 
of  limited  education  and  intelligence,  and  not  at  all  qualified 
by  capacity  or  training  for  the  position  he  occupies.  He  is 
a  very  strong  partisan,  but  is  regarded  as  a  kindly,  well- 


THE  FRAUD  OF   1876.  145 

disposed  sort-  of  man,  whose  worst  misfortune  is  that  the 
thoroughly  unprincipled  men  on  the  board  use  him  as  their 
tool.  This  must  be  regarded  as  certain,  in  the  absence  of 
any  proof  that  he  has  ever  opposed  the  confessed  illegality 
and  fraud  of  his  associates.  Kenner,  the  other  colored  man 
and  junior  member  of  the  board,  is  a  very  small,  light  mu 
latto,  quick  and  sprightly  in  his  movements,  but  altogether 
unfitted  by  talents,  education  or  experience,  for  so  responsi 
ble  a  position.  He  is  a  gambler  and  grog-seller,  a  very  low 
fellow,  and  a  few  years  ago  was  kicked  out  of  a  saloon  in 
New  Orleans  for  stealing  the  money  of  his  employer. 

Gentlemen,  these  are'  the  men  who  are  to  settle  the  issue 
of  a  Presidential  election  for  the  people  of  the  United  States 
in  the  centennial  year  of  the  republic.  A  Louisiana  tribunal, 
hatched  into  life  by  huckstering  politicians,  shamefully  unfit 
to  pass  upon  the  average  questions  cognizable  in  the  court  of 
a  justice  of  the  peace,  and  condemned  by  the  decent  men  of 
all  parties  for  its  record  of  rascality  and  fraud,  is  to  decide r 
as  a  finality,  a  question  of  the  gravest  magnitude  to  forty 
millions  of  people.  Was  it  surprising,  in  such  a  crisis,  that 
the  chairman  of  the  national  Democratic  committee  should 
ask  some  of  the  chosen  friends  of  Tilden  and  Hendricks  to 
visit  Louisiana  in  the  interest  of  peace  and  a  fair  count  of  the 
vote  of  the  state?  Was  it  strange  that  a  thrill  of  alarm  was  » 
felt  in  every  section  of  the  Union,  and  that  men  spoke  with 
bated  breath  of  the  situation?  And  was  the  general  anxiety 
at  all  assuaged  by  the  sending  of  troops  to  New  Orleans? 
Did  not  the  man  who  said  "Let  us  have  peace,"  destroy 
civil  government  in  Louisiana  by  the  bayonet?  Two  years 
later,  when  the  same  returning  board  cheated  the  people  of 
the  state  out  of  the  right  to  their  own  chosen  rulers  through 
a  fair  and  valid  election,  did  he  not  back  up  the  outrage  by 
the  scandalous  use  of  federal  soldiers?  Has  not  the  man 
who  said  "  Let  no  guilty  man  escape,"  systematically  taken 
sides  with  usurpation  and  roguery  in  Louisiana?  Did  he 
need  troops  in  New  Orleans,  if  the  returning  board  was  re 
solved  to  act  honestly?  Or  did  he  mean  to  use  them  in  sus- 
10 


146  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

taining  it  in  the  repetition  of  its  past  offenses  'against  justice 
and  decency?  The  President,  in  his  military  order  to  Gen 
eral  Sherman,  said  that  "  either  party  can  afford  to  be  dis 
appointed  in  the  result,"  but  that  "  the  country  can  not  afford 
to  have  the  result  tainted  by  the  suspicion  of  illegal  or  false 
returns."  Did  he  mean  this?  Or  was  he  firing  at  honor  and 
fair  play  from  behind  a  masked  battery?  The  crisis  was 
critical.  Danger  seemed  to  be  in  the  air.  The  hearts  of  the 
people  wrere  burdened  with  the  problem  of  the  hour,  and  all 
patriotic  and  sober  men  anxiously  hoped  for  its  peaceable 
solution. 

What  was  to  be  done?  Representative  men  of  both  polit 
ical  parties  had  reached  the  theater  of  trouble,  and  as  the 
avowed  missionaries  of  peace  and  fair  dealing.  The  men 
who  represented  the  Democratic  side  of  the  controversy, 
fully  appreciating  the  seriousness  of  the  situation,  addressed 
a  brief  letter  to  Stanley  Matthews,  John  Sherman,  and  other 
representative  Republicans  who  had  been  deputed  by  the 
President,  proposing  a  joint  conference  "  in  order  that  such 
influence  as  they  possessed  might  be  exerted  in  behalf  of  such 
a  canvass  of  the  votes,  as  by  its  fairness  and  impartiality 
should  command  the  respect  and  acquiescence  of  the  Ameri 
can  people  of  all  parties."  I  submit  to  all  just  and  reason 
able  men  that  this  was  a  fair  and  manly  proposition.  I  am 
sure  it  was  made  in  good  faith,  and  that  not  a  man  who 
joined  in  it  would  have  been  willing  to  see  Tilden  and  Hen- 
dricks  counted  in  by  fraud.  We  simply  ask  for  a  fair  count, 
and  the  supervision  of  the  canvass  by  a  conference  represent 
ing  both  sides  of  the  disputed  question.  It  might  not  have 
accomplished  any  valuable  result,  but  in  so  threatening  an 
aspect  of  public  affairs  the  effort  was  certainly  to  be  com 
mended,  and  could  not  honorably  be  declined.  What  was 
the  answer  to  our  proposition  by  the  deputies  of  the  Presi 
dent  and  leaders  of  the  Republican  party?  They  say  in  the 
outset  that  they  "  know  of  no  reason  to  doubt  that  a  perfectly 
honest  and  just  declaration  of  the  results  of  the  recent  election 
in  Louisiana  by  its  lawfully  constituted  authorities  will  be 


THE  FRAUD  OF   1876.  147 

made."  Gentlemen,  would  any  of  you  have  believed  it 
morally  possible  for  Stanley  Matthews,  John  Sherman, 
and  their  Republican  co-laborers  in  Louisiana  to  face  the 
American  people  with  a  statement  so  shockingly  incredible? 
And  yet  they  were  equal  to  the  extraordinary  task,  and  they 
are  "  all  honorable  men."  I  will  not  be  so  ungenerous  and 
impolite  as  to  call  in  question  their  veracity,  but  it  can  only 
be  defended  by  an  impeachment  of  their  intelligence  almost 
as  disgraceful  as  lying.  No  reason  to  doubt  that  a  perfectly 
honest  and  just  declaration  of  the  vote  in  Louisiana  would  be 
made  by  the  famous  returning  board !  Then  they  had 
mingled  freely  with  the  people  of  New  Orleans  without  ever 
having  heard  of  the  notoriously  bad  character  of  three  or 
four  members  of  that  board  !  They  had  never  heard  that 
William  A.  Wheeler,  two  years  ago,  pronounced  it  "  a  dis 
grace  to  civilization  !"  They  had  never  heard  that  it  was 
proved  before  a  congressional  committee  of  Republicans, 
about  the  same  time,  that  the  president  of  this  board  perjured 
himself  in  the  testimony  he  gave  respecting  the  election  of  1874  • 
They  had  never  heard  of  the  perfectly  well-known  fact  that 
in  that  year  this  board  illegally  and  unjustly  took  the  major 
ity  of  votes  honestly  and  fairly  given  to  the  Democratic  ticket, 
and  counted  them  on  the  other  side,  as  admitted  by  the  con 
gressional  committee  referred  to,  which  was  composed  of  the 
political  friends  of  these  surprisingly  innocent  and  ignorant 
politicians,  and  of  the  members  of  the  board  itself!  They 
had  never  heard  that  General  Sheridan  summarily  turned  the 
president  of  this  board  out  of  his  gubernatorial  office  in  1867, 
on  account  of  his  shameless  rascality  and  disregard  of  law ! 
Who  would  have  supposed  that  our  country  was  afflicted 
with  so  rare  an  assemblage  of  political  Rip  Van  Winkles  as 
that  which  reported  for  duty  in  New  Orleans  under  the  lead 
of  Sherman,  Garfield  and  Kelly? 

But  these  Republican  patriots  declined  our  proposal  for  a 
joint  conference  for  the  further  reason  that  they  were  present 
as  mere  "witnesses,  without  power  or  legal  influence"  over 
the  action  of  the  board.  They  said  they  were  "strangers, 


SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

without  official  functions,"  and  that  "  it  would  be  a  manifest 
interference  with  state  rights  and  local  self-government  for 
persons  like  ourselves,  without  official  rights,  to  attempt  to 
interfere  with  or  control''  the  actions  of  such  a  tribunal. 
Angels  and  ministers  of  grace  defend  us  I  Will  wonders 
never  cease?  John  Sherman  and  his  confederate  Republi 
cans  preaching  the  gospel  of  state  rights  and  .local  self-gov 
ernment  in  Louisiana  !  The  chief  apostles  of  federal  usur 
pation  and  the  Christianity  of  the  bayonet  striving  to  hide  the 
villainies  of  a  Republican  returning  board  under  the  mantle 
of  Thomas  Jefferson  !  The  sanctities  of  law  invoked  by  the 
assassins  of  a  state !  Could  anything  be  more  sublimely 
impudent  or  more  charmingly  Satanic?  These  emissaries  of 
the  President  knew  that  the  men  who  proposed  a  joint  con 
ference  were  not  such  idiots  as  to  suppose  it  would  possess 
any  official  power  over  the  ]egal  functions  of  the  board. 
When  Senator  Sherman  pretended  not  to  know  this,  the 
man  was  forgotten  in  the  pettifogger.  What  we  hoped  from 
the  presence  and  cooperative  action  of  leading  Republicans 
and  Democrats  was  the  exercise  of  such  a  moral  influence 
over  this  suspected  tribunal  as  would  secure  publicity,  impar 
tiality,  and  fairness  in  its  methods  of  canvassing  the  votes 
and  ascertaining  the  result.  Our  purpose  was  unmistakable, 
and  it  accorded  perfectly  with  the  declared  wish  of  the  Presi 
dent,  that  '"'representative  and  fair  men  of  both  parties1'  would 
visit  Louisiana  "to  see  that  the  board  of  canvassers  make  a  fair 
count  of  the  vote  actually  cast."  The  presence  of  these  Re 
publican  leaders  in  New  Orleans  in  response  to  the  invitation 
of  their  chief,  was  a  clear  recognition  of  the  very  power  which 
they  afterwards  disclaimed  by  styling  themselves  "strangers," 
with  no  right  to  "control  or  influence  any  of  the  officers  of 
the  board  as  to  the  manner  in  which  they  shall  perform  min 
isterial  or  political  duties."  Fellow  citizens,  can  any  of  you 
divine  what  brought  these  gentlemen  to  New  Orleans?  They 
recoil  from  the  very  thought  of  exercising  any  influence,  legal 
or  moral,  over  the  action  of  the  board,  or  the  method  of  its 
proceedings.  They  say  they  know  of  no  reason  to  doubt 


THE  FRAUD  OF   1876.  149 

that  it  would  make  a  perfectly  honest  and  just  declaration  of 
the  results  of  the  election.  And  yet  here  were  twenty-six 
"  eminent  citizens"  and  "Christian  statesmen"  simultane 
ously  leaving  their  homes  for  Louisiana  at  the  call  of  the 
President,  and  attending  the  sessions  of  the  returning  board 
in  successive  squads  till  its  work  was  done.  What  is  the 
meaning  of  all  this?  They  say  they  went  as  "witnesses,'' 
but  why  go  so  far  to  witness  a  performance  that  would  un 
doubtedly  be  conducted  with  perfect  honesty  and  fairness? 
Why  make  a  long  journey  for  the  mere  purpose  of  becoming 
spectators  of  a  proceeding  over  which  they  could  exercise 
neither  legal  control  nor  moral  influence?  These  provoking 
questions  are  rendered  all  the  more  so  by  the  singular  fact 
that  this  formidable  body  of  "  witnesses  "  which  the  President 
detailed  for  duty  at  New  Orleans  disobeyed  their  orders. 
The  private  citizens  and  strangers,  whose  innocent  and  use 
less  mission  was  that  of  simple  spectators  of  the  doings  of  the 
board,  failed  even  in  that  duty.  They  were  in  the  court 
room  in  which  the  board  sat  while  canvassing  the  returns  and 
examining  the  papers,  but  with  rare  and  very  slight  excep 
tions  they  gave  no  more  attention  to  what  was  going  on,  and 
manifested  no  more  interest  in  the  proceedings  than  if  the 
whole  affair  had  related  exclusively  to  the  denizens  of  another 
planet.  Their  confidence  in  the  board  seemed  to  be  so  gush 
ing  and  unreserved  that  they  peacefully  resigned  themselves 
to  their  correspondence,  their  newspapers,  and  their  cigars, 
while  the  presence  of  a  formidable  military  force  in  this 
city  to  "  see  that  the  members  of  the  board  were  unmolested 
in  the  performance  of  their  duties,"  was  probably  felt  as  a 
superadded  solace  to  their  souls.  They  may  have  been 
"witnesses"  to  some  of  the  acts  of  the  board,  but  if  so,  it 
must  have  been  at  night,  in  some  appointed  gathering  of  the 
politically  elect,  into  which  no  friend  of  Tilden  and  Hendricks 
could  be  admitted.  Gentlemen,  I  desire  to  do  injustice  to 
no  man.  Unfounded  suspicion  is  mean  and  cowardly;  but 
in  the  light  of  the  facts  I  have  stated  I  again  ask  the  question, 
why  did  this  remarkable  troupe  of  political  partisans  visit  the 


150  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

state  of  Louisiana?  Did  they  go  to  see  the  orange  groves 
and  sugar  mills  of  the  state,  or  the  jetties  of  the  Mississippi? 
Was  it  a  trip  of  mere  pleasure,  or  private  business,  accident 
ally  happening  at  the  time  the  returning  board  was  in  session? 
Was  the  invitation  of  the  President  utterly  without  meaning? 
If  their  mission  was  political,  do  you  believe  they  went  as  an 
embassy  of  peace,  putting  party  under  their  feet  in  the  over 
mastering  desire  to  tranquilize  the  public  mind  and  enforce 
justice  and  law  in  counting  the  votes  of  the  state?  Or  did 
they  go  as  the  backers  and  accomplices  of  the  returning 
board,  in  the  conspiracy  to  count  out  the  lawfully  elected 
President  of  the  United  States,  by  wrenching  from  the  people 
of  Louisiana  for  the  third  time  the  precious  right  of  self-gov 
ernment?  Answer  these  questions  for  yourselves,  after  you 
have  followed  me  in  the  further  development  of  my  subject. 
The  board  entered  upon  its  regular  duties  on  the  2oth  of 
November.  Was  it  legally  constituted  ?  The  law  creating  it  de 
clares  that  it  shall  consist  of  five  members,  and  that  all  the  po 
litical  parties  of  the  state  shall  be  represented.  But  there  were 
but  four  members,  and  these  all  Republicans  ;  and  yet  Senator 
Sherman,  in  the  senate  the  other  day,  said  "  the  board  was 
legally  constituted."  What  does  he  mean  by  so  reckless  a 
statement?  It  is  not  denied  that  the  action  of  four  members 
would  be  as  legal  as  that  of  the  whole,  so  far  as  numbers  are 
concerned  ;  but  here  is  a  positive  requirement  that  all  po 
litical  parties  shall  be  represented  on  the  board.  This  is 
just  as  binding  as  the  provision  fixing  the  number  of  the 
body.  A  board  consisting  of  two  members  could  not  act, 
because  it  would  lack  the  numerical  qualification  prescribed 
by  law,  just  as  a  board  composed  exclusively  of  members  of 
one  political  party  lacks  the  political  qualification  prescribed  by 
the  same  law.  The  first  duty  of  the  board,  therefore,  without 
which  I  think  it  was  powerless  to  perform  any  other,  was  to  fill 
the  vacancy,  which  the  law  expressly  authorized  and  required 
it  to  do.  The  counsel  for  the  Democratic  candidates  formally 
asked  for  the  performance  of  this  obvious  and  imparative 
duty,  suggesting  the  name  of  a  most  worthy  and  well  quali- 


THE  FRAUD  OF   l876.  151 

fied  man  for  the  position  ;  but  the  board  refused.  It  defi 
antly  trampled  under  foot  the  two-fold  command  of  the  law 
to  fill  the  vacancy,  and  to  supply  the  political  element  which 
was  wanting.  President  Wells,  "the  plain  man,"  who 
seems  to  be  a  great  favorite  of  Senator  Sherman,  said  the 
Democrats  had  lost  their  right  to  a  member  of  the  board  by 
the  resignation  of  Mr.  Arroyo,  which  I  think  took  place  a 
year  and  a  half  ago.  He  further  said  that  the  board  had 
failed  to  agree  as  to  the  appointment  of  the  gentleman  sug 
gested,  as  if  no  other  man  could  be  found  among  the  more 
than  80,000  Democrats  and  conservatives  of  the  state.  He 
made  the  further  pitiful  plea,  that  when  this  returning  board 
was  first  created  there  was  no  such  organization  as  the  Dem 
ocratic-conservative  party  in  the  state,  as  if  that  fact  could 
furnish  the  slightest  excuse  for  violating  the  law  to-day.  This 
miserable  drivel,  by  the  side  of  which  the  worst  forms  of 
pettifogging  become  respectable,  is  paraded  in  the  senate  of 
the  United  States  by  Mr.  Sherman  as  a  vindication  of  the 
board  ;  while  in  a  recent  debate  in  the  house  of  representa 
tives,  Mr.  Hale,  of  Maine,  sought  to  extricate  Governor 
Wells  from  his  despicable  dilemma  by  saying  that  at  its  late 
session  the  board  had  offered  the  vacancy  to  as  many  as  six 
Democrats,  who  successively  declined  it.  This  statement  is 
absolutely  untrue.  Not  a  Democrat' was  offered  the  position , 
although  the  board  was  urged,  morning  after  morning  dur 
ing  its  sessions,  to  fill  it.  Why  did  it  refuse?  For  the  per 
fectly  manifest  reason  that  a  Democratic  member  would  be 
an  unmanageable  obstacle  to  the  \vork  to  be  done.  He  would 
have  a  right  to  take  part  in  the  oral  examination  of  witnesses. 
He  would  have  a  share  in  the  work  of  canvassing  the  re 
turns.  He  would  have  a  right  to  be  present  in  the  secret 
conferences  of  the  board,  during  its  protracted  public  sessions. 
And  he  would  be  present  at  the  final  cooking  of  the  returns 
by  which  the  state  was  to  be  cheated,  and  would  be  the  wit 
ness  of  the  transaction. 

These  are  exactly  the  reasons  why  the  board  stubbornly 
and  brazenly  refused  to  fill  the  vacancy  ;  and   I   believe  no 


152  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

man  will  deny  it  who  is  acquainted  with  its  history,  except 
the  innocent  and  child-like  Senator  Sherman,  and  the  guile 
less  political  babes  who  played  their  parts  as  "  witnesses  "  so 
inoffensively  at  New  Orleans.  Gentlemen,  the  defense  of 
such  lawlessness  by  honorable  men  in  either  branch  of  Con 
gress  would  be  a  melancholy  fact,  even  if  this  board  had 
been  able  to  point  to  a  record  of  umimpeachable  good  be 
havior  in  the  past.  But  its  character  was  bad,  in  the  judg 
ment  of  all  political  parties.  It  had  thwarted  the  will  of  the 
people  of  Louisiana  two  years  before,  by  making  the  ballot 
the  foot-ball  of  knavery  and  fraud.  Its  integrity  was  sus 
pected  by  intelligent  men  throughout  the  entire  land,  and  its 
action  in  thus  violating  the  principle  that  no  man  shall  be  a 
judge  in  his  own  case,  was  as  shameless  as  would  be  that  of 
a  judge  of  one  of  your  own  courts  who  should  claim  the  right 
to  occupy  the  bench  and  charge  the  jury  on  the  trial  of  an 
indictment  against  himself,  after  a  former  conviction  for  the 
.same  offense.  Its  audacity  in  clutching  at  party  machinery 
and  scouting  the  virtues  of  honesty,  impartiality  and  fairness, 
while  proceeding  to  decide  the  grave  issues  of  a  state  and 
national  election,  is  enough  to  provoke  the  laughter  and 
amazement  of  devils.  Senator  Sherman  defends  it.  He 
thinks  Governor  Wells  ''the  peer  of  any  man  in  the  senate/' 
and  he  sees  nothing  wrong  in  the  further  fact  that  the 
clerical  force  of  the  board  was  also  packed  with  Republicans. 
He  says  there  was  no  law  requiring  a  political  division  of  the 
clerks,  and  that  Democrats,  when  they  have  the  offices,  do 
not  divide  with  Republicans.  But  this  is  a  very  transparent 
dodge.  The  point  here  involved  is  not  one  of  law,  but  de 
cency.  The  returning  board  is  covered  with  public  sus 
picion.  Its  character  is  stained  by  fraud.  If  bent  upon  fur 
ther  rascalities  it  would,  of  course,  want  a  body  of  faithful 
clerical  scullions,  skilled  in  the  work  of  falsely  and  fraudu 
lently  canvassing  and  tabulating  the  votes,  and  all  acting 
harmoniously  in  the  service  of  their  master.  This,  of  course, 
would  be  seriously  interfered  with  by  the  presence  of  Demo 
crats,  while  no  harm  would  be  done  if  honor  and  fair  play 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  153 

were  to  be  the  governing  principles.  All  this  is  as  palpable 
as  the  moral  blindness  which  hinders  very  distinguished  and 
honorable  gentlemen  from  seeing  it. 

But  the  board  not  only  signalized  the  beginning  of  its 
work  by  openly  violating  the  law  affecting  its  organization 
and  functions,  but  it  still  further  affirmed  the  popular  distrust 
of  its  integrity  by  excluding  the  public  from  its  sessions. 
Judge  Spofford,  one  of  the  counsel  for  the  Democratic  can 
didates,  made  a  very  earnest  and  eloquent  appeal  for  public 
ity.  He  reminded  the  board  that  forty  millions  of  people 
were  watching  its  proceedings,  and  quoted  the  language  of 
the  President,  that  "  should  there  be  any  grounds  of  suspi 
cion  of  a  fraudulent  counting  on  either  side,  it  should  be  re 
ported  and  denounced  at  once."  In  the  name  of  the  Amer 
ican  people  he  asked  that  no  part  of  the  work  should  "be 
done  in  a  corner,'1  and  declared  that  there  was  "  no  call  for 
privacy  in  applying  the  rules  of  arithmetic,1'  or  in  perform 
ing  "judicial  duties."  But  the  board  refused  to  listen  to  this 
demand  on  the  flimsy  pretext  that  if  it  was  surrounded  by  a 
multitude  of  people  it  would  be  disturbed  and  delayed  in  its 
proceedings.  What  the  country  wanted  was  not  only  an 
honest  count  of  the  vote,  but  that  the  proceedings  should  be 
conducted  with  such  evident  fairness  as  to  make  this  unques 
tionable  to  the  people  of  all  parties.  If  at  all  possible,  suspi 
cion  should  have  been  entirely  disarmed  by  invoking  the  full 
light  of  day  upon  a  transaction  so  pregnant  with  interest, 
both  to  the  state  and  the  nation.  But  "  men  love  darkness 
rather  than  light  because  their  deeds  are  evil."  The  people 
of  Louisiana  were  not  allowed  to  witness  the  canvass  of  their 
own  votes.  The  press  reporters,  representing  the  leading 
newspapers  of  the  country,  were  excluded  from  the  court 
room  on  their  petition  to 'be  admitted.  The  supervisors  of 
registration  and  elections  who  desired  to  witness  the  canvass 
of  the  votes  were  not  allowed  to  be  present,  either  in  person 
or  by  their  counsel.  The  Democratic  candidates  and  their 
attorneys  wrere  also  excluded,  except  on  the  hearing  of  con 
tested  cases,  although  their  presence  was  exceedingly  im- 


154  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

portant  during  the  entire  proceedings,  owing  to  their  famili 
arity  with  the  different  parishes  and  voting  precincts,  and 
their  ability  to  detect  any  indications  of  fraud  on  the  opening 
of  the  returns,  which  the  visiting  committee  present  would 
necessarily  fail  to  discover.-  The  board,  it  is  true,  so  far 
yielded  to  the  pressure  from  without  as  to  permit  the  pres 
ence  of  two  political  committees,  with  a  reporter  for  each, 
but  this  was  an  exceedingly  frail  barrier  against  secret  ma 
nipulation  and  fraud  in  the  returns.  These  committees  were 
composed  of  strangers  from  distant  states,  wholly  unfamiliar 
with  the  practical  roguery  of  Louisiana  officials,  while  the 
exclusion  of  the  general  press  reporters,  the  people  of  the 
state,  the  supervisors  and  registrars  of  elections,  and  the  can 
didates  for  office,  was  wrholly  indefensible,  and  utterly  irre 
concilable  with  an  honest  purpose  to  serve  the  interests  of 
truth.  It  perfectly  accorded,  however,  with  the  action  of  the 
board  in  other  respects.  It  had  openly  violated  the  law  as  to 
its  organization.  It  had  excluded  from  any  share  in  its  de 
liberations  every  element  that  would  not  yield  unhesitating 
obedience  to  its  base  purposes.  It  had  usurped  the  right  to 
sit  as  final  judge  of  its  own  flagitious  acts.  It  had  fully  re 
corded  its  purpose  to  re-enact  the  foul  game  of  1874.  ^  was 
entirely  natural,  therefore,  that  it  should  wrap  itself  in  the 
mantle  of  darkness  when  entering  upon  the  final  chapters  of 
its  unhallowed  conspiracy  to  cheat  the  people  of  the  United 
States. 

But  let  us  follow  the  board  in  its  work.  The  counsel  for 
the  Democratic  candidates,  at  the  outset,  protested  against 
the  right  of  the  board  to  canvass  the  electoral  vote  at  all,  but 
the  protest  was  summarily  overruled  and  no  opportunity 
allowed  for  argument.  With  characteristic  one-sidedness, 
the  board  ruled  in  favor  of  its  own  jurisdiction  ;  and  Senator 
Sherman,  in  his  late  letter  to  the  President,  declares  that  its 
action  is  "  independent  of  state  and  national  laws  other  than 
those  of  Louisiana,"  and  "finally  and  substantially  conclu 
sive  as  to  the  votes  cast  and  candidates  elected."  In  sup 
port  of  this  position  he  cites  a  decision  of  the  Supreme 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  155 

Court  of  Louisiana,  well  knowing  at  the  time  that  Chief 
Justice  Ludeling,  who  pronounced  that  decision,  had  been 
branded  with  "fraud  and  breach  of  trust"  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  in  a  case  which  brought  his  char 
acter  in  question.  But  conceding  that  there  is  no  appeal 
from  the  decisions  of  this  board,  their  finality  certainly  could 
not  be  admitted  as  to  questions  beyond  its  jurisdiction.  It 
has  no  right  to  wander  away  from  its  appointed  work,  and 
pass  upon  questions  not  cognizable  by  it,  under  the  law  from 
which  it  derives  its  authority.  Judge  Trumbull  and  his  asso 
ciates,  in  their  late  Louisiana  report,  have  conclusively  shown 
that  the  law  of  1872  creating  this  tribunal,  and  under  which 
it  acted,  makes  no  provision  as  to  the  manner  of  appointing 
electors  for  President  and  Vice-President,  while  it  seems 
to  repeal  all  other  laws  on  the  subject  of  elections.  They 
show  that  if  the  previous  act  of  1870  respecting  the  appoint 
ment  of  Presidential  electors  is  repealed,  there  is  no  law  of 
the  state  on  the  subject,  and  the  board  is  consequently  with 
out  authority  to  canvass  the  votes  for  such  offices  ;  but  that 
if  the  act  of  1870  is  not  repealed,  the  canvass  of  the  votes 
for  electors  must  be  made  by  the  Governor  in  the  presence 
of  the  Secretary  of  State,  the  Attorney-General,  a  judge  of 
the  district  in  which  the  seat  of  government  may  be  estab 
lished,  or  any  two  of  them,  as  required  by  that  act.  The 
public  has  been  made  acquainted  with  this  argument,  and  I 
need  not  repeat  it  at  length ;  and  although  Mr.  Sherman 
refers  to  it  as  "  an  array  of  technicalities,"  its  soundness  has 
been  indorsed  by  some  of  the  ablest  lawyers  of  the  country, 
and  has  not  been  successfully  impeached  in  any  quarter. 

But  even  if  the  board  had  the  right  to  canvass  the  electo 
ral  vote,  it  clearly  transcended  its  legal  authority  in  throwing 
out  votes  on  account  of  intimidation  and  violence.  Its  sim 
ple  duty  was  to  canvass  and  compile  the  returns  and  pro 
claim  the  result,  unless  the  commissioners  of  election  or  the 
supervisors  of  registration  imposed  upon  it  a  further  duty  by 
laying  a  legal  foundation  for  it,  as  provided  for  in  sections  26 
and  43  of  the  state  election  law.  That  foundation  must  con- 


156  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

sist  of  the  affidavit  of  the  supervisor  of  registration  or  com 
missioners  of  elections,  supported  by  the  affidavits  of  three 
or  more  citizens,  setting  forth  the  facts  of  any  riot,  tumult, 
acts  of  violence,  intimidation,  armed  disturbance,  bribery  or 
corrupt  influences  which  prevented  or  tended  to  prevent  a 
fair,  free  and  peaceable  election,  and  showing  the  number 
of  qualified  electors  deterred  by  such  proceedings  from  vot 
ing  or  registering.  This  statement  must  be  made  out  within 
24  hours  after  the  receipt  of  all  the  returns  for  the  different 
polling  places,  and  shall  be  forwarded  in  duplicate  to  the  su 
pervisor  of  registration  of  the  parish.  If  this  foundation  is 
not  laid,  the  board  has  no  jurisdiction  whatever  except  to 
count  the  votes  returned.  It  has  no  right  to  entertain  any 
outside  protest.  It  has  no  right  to  attack  the  returns  from 
any  poll,  ward  or  parish  in  the  state,  for  any  of  the  causes 
specified.  If  the  decision  of  the  board  is  final,  it  is  because 
its  proceedings  have  tracked  the  law,  and  are  therefore 
backed  by  its  authority.  The  board  has  no  ex  ojfi.cio  power 
to  institute  complaints  against  any  poll.  The  special  pro 
visions  of  the  law  have  an  unmistakable  meaning.  Their 
purpose  is  that  all  the  supervisors  shall  be  engaged  simultane 
ously  in  their  several  parishes  in  completing  their  returns  and 
statements  on  the  spot  where  the  election  was  held,  without 
communication  \vith  each  other  or  with  persons  beyond  the 
parish,  and  before  they  can  obtain  information  of  what  has 
been  done  in  other  parishes,  or  any  clear  knowledge  of  the 
result.  The  design  is  to  exclude  from  the  consideration  of 
the  returning  board  all  ex  j>ost  facto  complaints  which  might 
be  trumped  up  at  the  last  moment,  for  dishonest  purposes. 
And  this  was  the  declared  opinion  of  Messrs.  Hoar,  Wheeler 
and  Frye,  in  their  famous  report  of  February,  1875,  'm  which 
they  say  :  "We  are  clearly  of  opinion  that  the  returning 
board  has  no  right  to  do  anything  except  to  canvass  and 
compile  the  returns  which  were  lawfully  made  to  them  by 
local  officers,  except  in  cases  where  they  were  accompanied 
by  the  certificates  of  the  supervisor  or  commissioner  provided 
in  the  third  section."  I  believe  no  such  foundation  for  the  jur- 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  157 

isdiction  of  the  board,  as  the  law  requires,  was  laid  in  any 
parish  of  the  state,  and  certainly  not  in  any  of  the  five  which 
have  been  the  chief  theater  of  alleged  intimidation  and  vio 
lence.  The  action  of  the  board,  therefore,  in  seeking  to  de 
feat  the  will  of  the  people  of  Louisiana  by  disfranchising 
more  than  13,000  Democratic  voters,  was  not  only  a  flagrant 
usurpation  of  authority,  but  a  most  unpardonable  sin  against 
"  the  habit  of  obedience  to  the  forms  of  law,"  which  the  vis 
iting  committee  of  Republicans  at  New  Orleans  lately  sol 
emnly  warned  us  "should  be  sedulously  inculcated,"  and 
that  4'  the  resort  to  extra  constitutional  modes  of  redress  for 
even  actual  grievances  should  be  avoided  and  condemned 
as  revolutionary,  disorganizing,  and  tending  to  disorder  and 
anarchy." 

Gentlemen,  the  performances  of  the  returning  board  dur 
ing  its  recent  sessions  furnish  still  other  illustrations  of  the 
perverse  and  malign  spirit  which  has  flavored  the  entire  pro 
ceedings.  Governor  Wells,  after  being  repeatedly  and  per 
sistently  urged  to  fill  the  vacancy  on  the  board,  indignantly 
denied  that  it  had  ever  thought  of  refusing  to  fill  it ;  but  the 
vacancy  never  was  filled,  while  the  facts  of  the  case  clearly 
reveal  a  fixed  determination  not  to  fill  it.  The  board  played 
fast  and  loose  in  its  rulings  relative  to  ex  parte  affidavits. 
By  a  shifty  and  ambidextrous  policy,  it  allowed  many  such 
affidavits  to  be  received  in  the  interest  of  the  Republican  can 
didates  ;  but  after  assuring  the  counsel  on  the  other  side  that 
counter  affidavits  would  be  admitted,  on  which  assurance 
they  went  to  the  labor  and  expense  of  procuring  them  in 
large  quantities,  the  board  suddenly  changed  its  mind,  and 
the  permission  to  use  them  was  denied.  The  returns  from 
many  of  the  parishes  were  brought  to  the  city  in  the  pockets 
of  different  individuals,  instead  of  being  forwarded  by  mail, 
as  required  by  law,  and  were  received  by  the  board  without 
objection.  In  a  number  of  cases  they  were  carried  around 
the  city  for  days  by  the  parties  having  them  in  charge  ;  and 
when  these  parties,  as  sometimes  happened,  contumaciously 
refused  to  deliver  them  to  the  board,  or  held  them  back  on 


158  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

account  of  the  non-payment  of  charges  for  their  transmis 
sion,  Governor  Wells  manifested  not  the  slightest  desire  to 
get  possession  of  the  papers,  said  the  board  could  not  afford 
to  pay  the  charges,  and  falsely  declared  that  it  possessed  no 
power  to  compel  their  production.  In  answer  to  the -sugges 
tion  that  a  supervisor,  by  wrongfully  refusing  to  file  his  re 
turn,  might  deprive  the  people  of  their  votes,  Governor  Wells 
responded,  "  We  can't  help  that,"  and  that  "  criminality  of 
that  kind  should  be  brought  before  the  courts."  He  prom 
ised  to  take  up  the  consideration  of  East  Baton  Rouge  parish 
on  a  specified  day,  and  advised  the  counsel  for  the  Demo 
cratic  candidates  to  have  their  witnesses  in  readiness,  which 
they  did,  and  when  the  day  came  he  took  up  the  Eliza  Pink- 
ston  case,  in  which  they  were  surprised  and  entirely  unpre 
pared.  He  gave  written  and  express  permission  to  Governor 
Wickliffe  to  be  present  at  the  sessions  of  the  board,  and  when 
he  appeared  on  the  following  day  Governor  Wells  notified 
him  that  the  permission  was  withdrawn,  and  that  he  must  re 
tire.  In  several  instances  the  sealed  returns  from  distant 
parishes  were  clandestinely  opened  and  the  papers  tampered 
with,  after  they  had  been  received  by  the  board,  as  was 
shown  by  inspecting  the  papers  on  the  canvass  of  the  re 
turns.  As  an  example,  the  returns  from  the  parish  of  De 
Soto  were  received  on  the  i8th  of  November,  but  on  opening 
the  papers  on  the  25th  of  the  month,  the  affidavit  of  Mr.  Fer 
guson,  the  supervisor,  was  found  in  the  sealed  package, 
dated  on  that  day,  having  found  its  way  there,  of  course, 
through  the  agency  of  some  rascal  who  had  broken  the  seal 
in  order  to  doctor  the  case  with  ex  -post  facto  statements,  and 
then  re-sealed  the  package.  This  chapter  in  the  record  of 
the  returning  board  was  entirely  forgotten  by  Senator  Sher 
man  in  his  splendid  and  picturesque  biography  of  its  mem 
bers,  which  he  embodied  in  his  letter  to  the  President  trans 
mitting  the  proofs  of  intimidation  which  the  Republican  com 
mittee  had  procured  ;  but  in  justice  to  the  board  and  its  cler 
ical  force  I  must  not  fail  to  mention  the  original  defense  of 
this  ugly  specimen  of  Louisiana  crookedness  which  was  vol- 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  159 

unteered  by  Mr.  Stoughton,  of  New  York,  namely,  that  the 
dating  of  the  affidavit  on  the  25th  of  the  month,  which  had 
been  enclosed  and  sealed  up  in  the  parish  of  De  Soto  some 
ten  or  twelve  days  before,  was  a  "clerical  error!"  Mr. 
Stoughton  was  right.  It  was  a  "  clerical  error,"  and  quite 
unfortunately  for  the  state  of  Louisiana  such  "  errors  "  have 
been  entirely  too  common  in  the  operations  of  her  returning 
board  and  the  tactics  of  her  party  leaders  who  have  used  it 
in  keeping  themselves  in  power.  Indeed,  "  clerical  errors  " 
are  not  confined  to  Louisiana,  but  in  other  states  the  men  who 
commit  them  are  furnished  with  public  lodging  and  employ 
ment  in  our  penitentiaries,  as  an  army  of  forgers  and  coun 
terfeiters  can  bear  witness.  But  dispensing  with  any  further 
illustrations  of  returning  board  political  morality,  let  me 
come  directly  to  the  subject  of  political  outrages  in  Louisiana 
and  the  intimidation  of  voters. 

In  dealing  with  this  subject  I  invite  vour  attention  to  sev 
eral  considerations  which  meet  us  at  the  very  threshold  of  any 
honest  search  after  truth.  Bear  in  mind,  in  the  first  place, 
that  Louisiana  has  a  Republican  governor,  and  that  under 
her  anomalous  constitution  he  is  armed  with  powers  almost 
as  great  as  those  of  the  last  Napoleon.  He  appoints  and  re 
moves  the  registrars  of  election  and  their  assistants  through 
out  the  state,  whose  judgment  is  final  as  to  the  right  of  the 
citizen  to  vote,  and  who  are  generally  non-residents  of  the 
parishes  in  which  they  are  required  to  do  his  bidding  as  the 
unquestioning  tools  of  party.  He  controls  the  appointment 
of  the  commissioners  of  election,  who  receive  and  revise  the 
votes.  In  New  Orleans,  where  the  Democrats  are  in  the 
majority,  the  control  of  elections  is  given  to  the  metropolitan 
police,  which  is  appointed  by  the  governor,  and  may  be  used 
by  him  as  a  standing  army  in  any  part  of  the  state.  He  ap 
points  the  tax  collectors  of  the  state,  and  in  the  city  of  New 
Orleans  the  assessors  also.  He  appoints  the  state  board  of 
public  works.  When  he  deems  it  necessary,  he  may  ap 
point  an  extraordinary  force,  a  chief  constable  and  as  many 
deputies  as  he  thinks  necessary  in  any  parish,  with  ex  officio 


l6o  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

power  to  make  arrests.  He  can  till  all  vacancies  in  office 
throughout  the  state,  including  constables,  justices  of  the 
peace  and  parish  surveyors,  and  by  the.  help  of  the  legisla 
ture,  which  the  returning  board  can  elect,  he  can  control  the 
judiciary  of  the  state.  He  has  power  to  appoint  and  pay  a 
special  local  police  in  every  parish,  and  in  such  numbers  as 
he  pleases.  He  can  send  a  brigade  of  metropolitan  police 
into  any  part  of  the  state  at  his  own  will,  and  has  a  steamer 
at  his  command  to  transport  them.  The  judges  appointed 
by  him  superintend  the  selection  of  juries — grand  and  petit. 
He  controls  the  militia,  while  the  United  States  marshal,  who 
is  a  Republican,  has  the  control  of  federal  soldiers  by  orders 
from  Washington,  so  that  when  Marshal  Packard  was  chair 
man  of  the  state  Republican  committee,  every  United  States 
soldier  in  the  state  was  bound  to  obey  his  orders. 

Gentlemen,  in  the  light  of  these  remarkable  facts,  do  you 
not  see  the  intrinsic  absurdity  of  the  stories  we  hear  about 
intimidation  and  violence?  Is  not  their  falsehood  unmistak 
ably  confessed  in  the  keen  irony  which  they  embody?  Is 
the  governor  of  Louisiana,  armed  with  the  powers  of  an 
autocrat,  and  backed  by  the  whole  power  of  the  national 
administration,  utterly  incapable  of  maintaining  order  and 
securing  a  fair  election  through  the  officers  of  his  own  ap 
pointment?  Are  the  officials  of  Louisiana,  stimulated  by 
their  pampered  appetite  for  plunder,  unable  to  control  the 
fat  places  which  their  multiplied  opportunities  bring  within 
their  easy  reach?  Such  questions  as  these  suggest  their  own 
obvious  answer.  The  intimidation  of  voters  on  any  large 
scale  would  be  wholly  impracticable  under  such  a  govern 
ment,  if  its  functionaries  were  at  all  disposed  to  do  their  duty. 
The  perfectly  manifest  truth  is,  that  the  Republican  party  of 
Louisiana,  through  its  career  of  corruption  and  misgovern- 
ment,  has  deservedly  lost  its  ascendancy  in  the  state,  and 
confesses  it  by  appealing  to  the  saving  grace  of  its  returning 
board,  which  would  have  been  wholly  unnecessary  if  its 
administration  of  public  affairs  had  been  even  moderately 
decent  and  respectable.  For  several  years  past  the  colored 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  l6l 

voters  of  Louisiana  have  been  deserting  the  Republican 
ranks  and  joining  the  opposition..  Thousands  of  them  voted 
the  Democratic  ticket  in  1874,  an<^  tnus  secured  for  it  a  ma 
jority  of  nearly  3,000,  in  an  election  the  fairness  of  which  is 
not  impeached  by  Senator  Sherman  and  his  associates  ;  but 
why  seek  to  account  for  these  facts  on  the  theory  of  Demo 
cratic  intimidation,  when  they  find  so  ready  an  explanation 
in  the  circumstances  I  have  stated?  Who  does  not  see  that 
the  change  in  the  colored  vote  would  have  been  much  greater 
in  the  absence  of  the  potent  official  intimidation  of  the  Re 
publican  party? 

I  ask  your  attention,  gentlemen,  to  a  kindred  consider 
ation.  I  have  referred  to  the  vast  power  of  the  government 
of  Louisiana  over  the  fortunes  of  her  people,  and  indicated 
its  bearing  upon  the  question  of  intimidation.  The  manner 
in  which  that  power  has  been  employed  bears  still  more  di 
rectly  upon  that  question.  The  colored  people  of  the  state 
labor  under  many  disadvantages  which  their  former  enslave 
ment  has  entailed  upon  them,  but  they  are  not  so  besotted 
with  ignorance  as  to  be  insensible  to  the  ordinary  motives  of 
prudence  and  self-interest.  Bad  laws  tell  upon  their  pros 
perity.  Like  other  citizens,  they  are  able  to  realize  the 
blessings  of  good  government,  and  to  feel  the  mischiefs  of 
political  corruption  and  spoliation  in  the  name  of  law.  What 
has  the  Kellogg  government  of  Louisiana,  as  we  call  it,  done 
for  the  people  of  the  state,  white  or  black?  Let  me  give  you 
a  few  facts,  some  of  which  I  gather  from  Mr.  Chas.  Nord- 
hoff's  book  on  "  The  Cotton  States."  The  officers  charged 
with  the  execution  of  the  laws  are  not  only  inefficient  but 
corrupt.  Justice  is  not  only  denied,  but  openly  sold.  Judge 
Ludeling,  who  was  branded  with  dishonor  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  as  already  mentioned,  was  made 
chief  justice  of  the  state  by  Governor  Kellogg.  In  the  Re 
publican  parish  of  Placquimine,  33  persons  were  murdered 
from  1868  to  1875,  31  of  whom  were  colored,  and  murdered 
by  people  of  their  own  race,  not  one  of  whom  has  been  hung. 
In  the  parish  of  Natchitoches,  41  murders  occured  within  the 
ii 


l62  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

same  period,  but  not  a  man  of  the  murderers  paid  the  forfeit 
of  his  life,  although  the  parish  was  all  the  time  under  Re 
publican  rule,  with  a  corrupt  judge,  a  thieving  tax  collector, 
and  a  police  jury  made  up  mainly  of  illiterate  negroes.  The 
murder  of  Henry  Pinkston  illustrates  the  same  general  fact. 
The  case  has  been  made  very  sensational  by  Republican 
politicians.  The  version  of  the  affair  given  by  Mrs.  Pinkston 
startled  the  whole  country.  She  was  brought  into  the  court 
room  on  a  litter,  as  if  in  the  last  stages  of  life  from  the  effects 
of  her  fearful  wounds  ;  and  the  committee  of  visiting  Repub 
licans  evidently  felt  that  here  was  a  case  which  turned  the 
political  tables  decidedly  in  their  favor.  But  there  was  no 
evidence  that  the  murder  had  any  connection  whatever  with 
politics.  Pinkston  himself  was  a  Democrat.  Many  of  the 
statements  of  Mrs.  Pinkston  were  conclusively  shown  to  be 
false.  She  was  shown  to  be  herself  a  desperado,  and 
scarcely  more  than  half-witted.  Her  character  for  veracity, 
as  well  as  in  other  respects,  was  proved  to  be  as  bad  as  pos 
sible.  She  had  been  indicted  for  murder.  It  turned  out  that 
she  was  able  to  walk  about  town  on  the  day  she  was  carried 
into  court,  and  that  the  circumstances  of  her  appearance  there 
were  part  of  a  theatrical  performance  which  was  planned  and 
enacted  in  the  interest  of  the  political  cause  it  was  designed 
to  serve.  But  these  are  incidental  observations.  The  fact  is 
that  Henry  Pinkston's  life  was  taken  by  violence,  and  that 
no  effort  whatever  was  made  to  find  out  the  criminal.  The 
coroner  of  the  parish,  a  Republican,  declined  to  hold  an  in 
quest  over  his  body.  The  Governor  offered  no  reward  for  the 
discovery  and  arrest  of  his  murderer,  and  but  for  the  effort  that 
was  made  to  connect  the  affair  with  politics  it  would  probably 
have  attracted  no  attention. 

In  a  few  parishes  of  the  state  there  is  a  good  deal  of  gen 
eral  lawlessness,  like  that  which  prevails  in  some  of  our 
western  territories  ;  but  in  neither  of  these  parishes,  nor  in 
the  state  generally,  is  the  punishment  of  crime  enforced. 
The  Governor  rivals  the  President  himself  in  the  abuse  of 
the  pardoning  power.  The  government,  with  well-nigh  ab- 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  163 

solute  power  at  its  command,  connives  at  the  open  defiance 
of  its  authority,  and  thus  makes  itself  a  party  to  the  multi 
plied  acts  of  lawlessness  and  outrage  which  scourge  the  state. 
These  acts  very  rarely  grow  out  of  any  question  affecting 
the  relations  of  the  white  and  colored  races,  but  whatever 
their  origin  may  be,  the  government  is  wholly  without  excuse 
in  failing  to  employ  against  them  the  strong  hand  of  power, 
and  thus  making  itself  a  terror  to  the  people  instead  of  the 
protector  of  their  rights  and  the  avenger  of  their  wrongs. 

The  failure  of  the  civil  authorities  in  other  respects  is 
equally  inexcusable  and  shocking.  The  public  schools  of 
the  state  are  converted  into  political  engines,  and  largely 
given  over  to  the  management  of  demagogues.  Unworthy, 
incompetent,  and  drunken  characters  are  employed  as  teach 
ers  as  the  reward  of  political  services.  In  many  parishes 
the  members  of  the  legislature  are  members  and  officers  of 
the  school  board,  and  the  schools  thus  become  a  part  of  the 
regular  machinery  of  politics.  The  business  of  the  teachers 
is  not  to  teach,  but  to  talk  up  the  man  who  appoints  them. 
Only  a  little  over  one-fifth  of  the  children  of  the  state,  be 
tween  the  ages  of  six  and  twenty-one,  are  enrolled  in  the 
public  schools.  In  one  parish  the  treasurer  of  the  school 
board  uses  the  funds  for  his  private  purposes,  and  pays 
the  teacher  in  scrip.  In  two  other  parishes  the  treasurers 
abscond  with  a  large  amount  of  money.  In  another  the 
school  money  is  invested  in  private  business  and  speculation. 
In  the  parish  of  St.  James  the  school  board  burned  their  rec 
ord  on  leaving  the  office.  The  administration  of  local  school 
boards  abounds  in  embezzlements,  defalcations,  incornpe- 
tency  and  faithlessness,  as  shown  by  the  reports  of  the  state 
superintendent. 

The  financial  policy  of  the  government  is  equally  vicious 
and  profligate.  In  New  Orleans  the  assessors  receive  five 
per  cent,  on  their  assessments.  In  the  parishes  of  the  state 
the  collectors  receive  ten  per  cent,  of  their  collections.  The 
assessments  are  sometimes  as  high  as  one  hundred,  and  even 
one  hundred  and  fifty  per  cent,  above  the  true  valuation  of 


164  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

the  property,  and  the  assessor  receives  his  fee  on  the  entire 
amount,  although  the  false  valuation  may  afterwards  be  cor 
rected.  The  rate  of  taxation  is  equally  startling,  being  some 
times  as  high  as  seven  or  eight  cents  on  the  dollar.  The 
effect  of  this  shameful  maladministration  is  greatly  to  depre 
ciate  the  value  of  all  property  in  the  state  and  paralyze  all 
branches  of  business  and  industry.  It  is  simply  the  legalized 
robbery  of  the  people.  The  love  of  plunder  sometimes  seeks 
to  disguise  itself  in  the  form  of  indirect  taxation.  The  legis 
lature  of  the  state  has  chartered  a  company  with  the  exclu 
sive  right  to  sell  lottery  tickets  in  the  state,  on  condition  of  its 
annual  payment  of  $40,000,  and  the  act  declares  one  of  its 
objects  to  be  "  to  raise  a  fund  for  educational  and  charitable 
purposes."  On  a  million  of  capital  it  is  said  this  company 
makes  not  less  than  $750,000  clear  profit  yearly,  and  it  has 
established  policy  shops  and  petty  gambling  dens  at  various 
points  in  New  Orleans,  and  thus  greatly  demoralized  the  la 
boring  classes.  Another  company  was  chartered  in  1874, 
under  the  name  of  "  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 
Animals,"  whose  object  seems  to  have  been  the  raising  of  a 
revenue  by  cattle  stealing,  and  one  of  the  most  amusing 
chapters  of  Mr.  NordhofF's  book  is  that  in  which  he  refers  to 
the  numerous  chartered  monopolies  by  which  the  people  are 
fleeced  under  the  false  pretense  of  promoting  their  welfare. 
I  can  not  dwell  upon  these  matters  further,  nor  have  I  the 
time  to  notice  in  detail  the  election  laws  of  the  state,  and  the 
use  which  has  been  made  of  their  dishonest  machinery.  I 
have  already  dealt  with  the  returning  board,  which  I  am  sure 
has  no  honest  defender  in  the  country,  unless  I  except  Sena 
tor  Sherman  and  his  unsophisticated  associates  of  the  visiting 
Republican  committee.  I  only  remark  that  5,200  false 
registrations  were  made  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans  alone  by 
the  Republican  officials  in  1847,  and  I  believe  over  7,000  in 
the  late  election  ;  that  the  legislature  is  sometimes  largely 
composed  of  supervisors  of  registration  who  are  chosen  from 
parishes  they  never  saw  till  they  went  there  to  superintend 
the  election  ;  and  that  in  the  election  of  1874,  m  a  case  wnere 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  165 

the  Democratic  ticket  succeeded,  the  records  were  carried 
by  the  supervisor  of  the  parish  to  New  Orleans  and  concealed 
in  a  house  of  prostitution,  one  of  whose  inmates  was  sent  to 
drive  a  bargain  for  their  return.  Gentlemen,  is  it  strange 
that  such  facts  as  I  have  recited  should  drive  colored  voters 
out  of  the  Republican  party?  Is  it  strange  that  thousands  of 
them  deserted  it  in  1874,  and  many  thousands  more  in  the 
late  election?  Is  it  not  surprising,  rather,  that  a  general  de 
sertion,  or  even  a  stampede,  has  not  occurred,  leaving  the  two 
thousand  white  Republican  voters  of  the  state  alone  in  their 
glory?  Why  talk  about  Democratic  intimidation  of  the  col 
ored  voter  in  the  presence  of  the  palpable  facts  of  his  situa 
tion?  Why  be  amazed  that  he  should  follow  the  example  of 
his  brethren  in  Mississippi,  or  in  the  Democratic  state  of 
Georgia,  in  which  they  own  more  real  estate,  and  pay  taxes 
on  more  property  than  in  any  state  under  Republican  rule? 
Why  take  it  for  granted  that  the  Louisiana  negro  is  too 
hopelessly  stupid  to  leave  his  political  associates  in  the  pur 
suit  of  his  own  interests,  when  such  Republicans  as  Wheeler, 
Hoar  and  Frye  tell  him  "  there  has  been  great  maladminis 
tration  "  in  the  state,  that  the  "public  funds  have  been 
wasted"  and  "public  credit  is  impaired,"  while  "taxation 
is  heavy  ?  " 

Gentlemen,  there  is  another  consideration  involved  in  this 
discussion  which  I  must  not  fail  to  notice,  namely,  that  in 
timidation  is  a  game  which  two  may  play  at.  I  do  not  pretend 
that  the  Democrats  of  Louisiana  are  wholly  innocent  of  this 
political  vice.  Human  nature  is  the  same  in  both  parties, 
and  both  have  practiced  it,  in  some  form,  in  every  state  of 
the  Union.  After  the  war  the  wrhite  people  of  the  states  late 
ly  in  rebellion  manifested  a  spirit  of  intolerance  and  hate  to 
ward  the  people  who  had  been  their  bondmen  and  were  now 
suddenly  lifted  to  citizenship  and  suffrage,  and  for  some 
years  this  spirit  made  its  record  in  deeds  of  frightful  violence 
and  crime.  But  a  kindlier  feeling  has  been  gradually 
evoked,  notwithstanding  the  efforts  of  demagogues  and  car 
pet-bag  thieves  to  perpetuate  the  estrangement  of  the  races. 


1 66  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

Free  labor  is  now  generally  conceded  to  be  a  success  by  the 
men  who  fought  for  slavery.  They  would  not  restore  it  if 
they  had  the  power,  nor  take  the  ballot  from  the  negro. 
Their  old  hostility  to  the  Union  has  measurably  perished  with 
the  institution  which  inspired  it.  They  have  suffered  very 
severely  from  the  ravages  of  war,  and  have  endured  with 
singular  patience  and  long  suffering  the  cruel  inflictions  of  a 
state  government  which  has  been  fastened  upon  their  necks 
by  fraud  and  supported  by  federal  despotism.  What  they 
now  ask  is  good  government  and  a  fair  opportunity  to  rebuild 
their  shattered  fortunes.  They  are  intensely  anxious  to  rid 
themselves  of  the  remorseless  usurpation  under  which  they 
have  so  long  groaned  ;  and  in  the  scuffle  for  deliverance 
against  a  powerful  and  perfectly  unscrupulous  foe,  it  would 
be  strange  if  they  had  not  sometimes  sought  the  votes  of  the 
colored  people  by  the  current  methods  of  political  warfare. 
But  if  they  have  practiced  intimidation,  the  Republicans  of 
Louisiana  are  not  the  men  to  upbraid  them.  The  Kellogg 
government  is  itself  an  organized  intimidation  and  standing 
menace  of  all  honest  men,  while  it  has  taken  into  its  embrace 
the  rogues  and  ruffians  of  the  state.  For  years  past  the  Re 
publicans  of  Louisiana  have  practiced  intimidation  exten 
sively  and  rigorously.  The  United  States  marshal  for  the 
state  has  used  cavalrv  to  intimidate  Democrats.  In  his 
official  capacity,  and  while  at  the  same  time  chairman  of 
the  state  Republican  committee,  he  has  on  several  occasions 
employed  federal  soldiers  in  the  service  of  his  party,  just  as 
the  army  and  revenue  officers  were  used  in  Alabama  in  se 
curing  the  election  of  Spencer  to  the  Senate  of  "the  United 
States.  The  white  and  colored  testimony  submitted  to  the 
returning  board  during  its  late  sessions,  and  subsequently 
taken  more  fully  by  the  congressional  committees  now  in 
Louisiana,  shows  that  the  negroes  themselves  are  among  the 
most  savage  and  ferocious  intimidators  in  the  state,  and  that 
the  crimes  and  outrages  inflicted  on  their  colored  brethren 
for  daring  to  vote  as  they  please  are  a  full  match  for  any  of 
the  kindred  performances  charged  to  the  Democrats. 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  167 

The  more  intelligent  classes  of  them  are  powerfully  im 
pelled  by  the  reasons  already  mentioned  to  break  their  party 
ranks  ;  but  in  attempting  to  do  so  they  are  often  obliged  to 
risk  their  lives.  The  wives  of  colored  men  frequently 
threaten  to  leave  them  if  they  vote  the  Democratic  ticket,  and 
for  doing  so  I  believe  this  threat  has  sometimes  been  executed 
and  a  divorce  demanded  from  the  husband.  Colored  Dem 
ocrats  are  turned  out  of  church  for  the  same  cause  ;  and  a 
case  has  recently  been  reported  in  which  the  rite  of  baptism 
was  denied  to  a  colored  man  because  he  had  left  the  Re 
publican  party.  Mr.  NordhofTsays  that  in  parts  of  southern 
Louisiana  the  negroes  are  still  summoned  from  the  fields  to 
political  meetings  by  order  of  General  Butler ;  and  he  men 
tioned  a  case  where  a  candidate  for  a  county  office  circulated 
a  printed  •'  general  order,"  commanding  all  colored  men  to 
vote  for  him,  and  signed  "U.  S.  Grant,  President,"  which 
secured  him  the  solid  colored  vote.  In  a  political  canvass  in 
Louisiana  the  negroes  are  thoroughly  indoctrined  with  the 
idea  that  they  will  be  sold  into  slavery  if  the  Democratic 
ticket  should  be  elected,  just  as  Senator  Morton  told  the  peo 
ple  of  Indiana  in  the  late  canvass,  that  if  Tilden  should  suc 
ceed  slavery  would  certainly  be  re-established,  the  rebel 
debt  saddled  upon  us,  and  the  loval  debt  repudiated.  The 
Republican  howl  about  intimidation,  which  is  now  sounding 
through  the  land,  comes  with  an  ill  grace  from  the  leaders 
of  a  party  who  demanded  the  votes  of  eighty  thousand  office 
holders  for  Hayes  and  Wheeler  on  penalty  of  dismissal,  and 
tested  their  fidelity  to  their  masters  by  levying  contributions 
upon  their-  earnings.  But  still  more  utterly  preposterous  is 
the  complaint  of  the  Republican  party  of  Louisiana  about  in 
timidation  in  that  state.  With  such  leaders  as  Kellogg, War- 
moth,  Packard,  Casey  and  Pinchback,  armed  and  equipped 
with  the  whole  power  of  the  state  government,  and  reinforced 
by  the  army  and  navy  with. the  entire  patronage  of  the  fed 
eral  government  superadded,  the  cry  of  Democratic  intimi 
dation  is  like  the  whine  of  a  mailed  giant  for  military  pro 
tection  against  an  unarmed  boy. 


1 68  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

But  perhaps  it  will  be  said,  after  all,  that  I  have  not  met 
the  question  in  dispute.  It  may  occur  to  some  of  you  that  I 
have  dealt  only  in  generalities,  and  while  indicating  the 
strong  probabilities  of  the  case,  have  not  considered  the  spe 
cific  issue  to  be  tried  in  its  relations  to  the  evidence.  I  im 
agine  some  one  saying:  "  You  have  been  in  Louisiana  and 
witnessed  the  proceedings  of  the  returning  board  in  canvass 
ing  the  vote.  You  have  had  access  to  the  testimony  on  both 
sides,  and  have  mingled  with  the  people  of  both  parties. 
Tell  us,  if  you  can,  the  truth  about  intimidation.  You  say 
that  under  the  law  of  Louisiana  the  board  had  no  right  to 
investigate  this  question,  since  the  proper  foundation  for  the 
inquiry  was  not  laid  ;  but  putting  the  law  aside,  let  us  know 
\hefacts.  Undoubtedly  there  was  intimidation  on  both  sides, 
but  does  the  evidence  show  such  a  preponderance  of  Demo 
cratic  intimidation  over  that  practiced  by  the  Republicans  as 
to  justify  the  action  of  the  board  in  its  wholesale  rejection  of 
votes?  If  not,  did  it  warrant  any  interference  with  the  votes 
actually  cast,  as  shown  on  the  face  of  the  returns?  '"'  Let  me 
endeavor  to  respond  to  these  questions : 

No  pretense  is  set  up  that  the  vote  was  not  actually  given. 
There  is  no  charge  of  repeating,  ballot  stuffing  or  fraudulent 
returns.  The  sole  complaint  is  intimidation,  and  for  this 
cause  alone  the  declared  result  of  the  election  is  to  be  re 
versed.  This  charge  is  made  by  the  Republicans,  and  of 
course  they  are  bound  to  prove  it.  They  must  establish  it 
affirmatively  by  clear  and  conclusive  proof.  The  right  of 
representation  is  sacred,  and  it  must  not  be  taken  away  from 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  citizens  on  any  ground  of  conjec 
ture,  or  suspicion,  or  uncertain  testimony.  I  have  already 
pointed  out  the  strong  moral  improbability  of  the  truth  of 
of  this  charge,  drawn  from  the  considerations  I  have  pre 
sented.  I  have  referred  to  the  suspicion  of  its  falsehood 
founded  on  the  notoriously  bad  character  of  the  institution 
which  has  adjudicated  upon  it,  and  which  defrauded  the  peo 
ple  of  Louisiana  in  1874  by  a  false  count.  I  have  mentioned 
the  fact,  shown  by  the  evidence,  that  the  acts  of  personal 


THE    FRAUD    OF    1876.  169 

outrage  arid  violence  which  have  scourged  the  state  during 
the  past  few  years  have  seldom  had  any  connection  with  pol 
itics  or  the  relations  of  the  races,  and  that  the  failure  to  sup 
press  such  lawlessness  has  not  been  the  fault  of  the  Demo 
crats.  The  charge  of  intimidation  is  not  proved  by  Senator 
Sherman's  array  of  crimes  and  outrages,  running  back  six 
or  eight  years,  and  having  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
recent  election.  It  is  not  proved  by  the  increase  of  the  Dem 
ocratic  majority  in  the  recent  election  over  that  of  two  years 
before,  since  this  change  is  much  less  than  we  have  seen  in 
various  northern  states  in  which  no  pretense  of  intimidation 
has  been  suggested.  It  is  not  proved,  certainly,  by  the  fact 
that  the  aggregate  vote  of  Louisiana  in  the  late  election  is 
over  12,000  larger  than  ever  cast  before,  of  which  increase 
the  Republican  party  is  shown  to  have  had  its  share.  It  is 
not  proved  by  the  fact  already  stated,  which  the  evidence 
fully  establishes,  that  intimidation  was  largely  and  very  ef 
fectively  practiced  by  the  negroes  of  the  state  on  their  col 
ored  fellow-citizens.  It  is  not  proved  by  evidence  tending  to 
show  that  Louisiana  is  so  given  over  to  anarchy  and  barbar 
ism  as  to  be  unfit  for  civil  government,  since  we  are  now 
inquiring  into  the  result  of  an  election  and  the  working  of 
Republican  machinery  under  the  conditions  actually  existing, 
and  which  we  believe  can  best  be  reformed  by  Republican 
remedies. 

Where,  then,  is  the  testimony  that  can  lift  the  charge  of 
Democratic  intimidation  out  of  the  ugly  limbo  of  doubt  and 
denial  in  which  we  find  it,  and  compel  us  to  accept  it  as  true? 
Where  is  the  uncontradicted  evidence  of  trustworthy  men 
that  could  have  justified  the  returning  board  in  converting  a 
Democratic  majority  of  8,000  or  9,000  votes  into  a  Republi 
can  majority  of  4,000?  Gentlemen,  no  such  testimony  can 
be  found,  because  it  has  no  existence.  The  mass  of  evidence 
transmitted  to  the  President  by  Senator  Sherman  is  by  no 
means  so  formidable  as  its  bulk  might  indicate.  A  part  of  it 
consists  of  ex  -parte  affidavits,  some  of  which  we  know  to 
have  been  forged,  while  others  embody  the  false  statements 


I7O  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

of  negroes  who  can  neither  read  nor  write,  and  were  the 
willing  tools  of  their  managers  in  swearing  as  they  were  in 
structed.  Others  are  signed  by  a  better  class  of  colored 
men  on  a  false  representation  of  what  the  prepared  papers 
contained.  Many  of  these  affidavits,  and  of  the  regular 
depositions  also,  show  that  they  were  drawn  up  in  blank  as 
to  the  name  of  the  witness,  of  the  parish,  and  other  ma 
terial  facts,  and  the  blanks  afterwards  filled  in  different  ink 
and  handwriting,  indicating  the  manufacture  of  testimony  by 
pre-arranged  machinery.  All  of  this  evidence,  of  course, 
had  gone  through  the  returning  board  mill,  and  some  of  it 
had  been  corruptly  tampered  with,  as  in  the  case  of  the  par 
ish  of  De  Soto  ;  but  to  how  great  an  extent  no  one  knows  but 
the  guilty  parties.  As  a  further  proof  of  the  dishonesty  of  the 
returning  board,  and  the  bad  character  of  this  Republican 
evidence,  I  mention  the  fact  that  several  of  the  candidates 
for  state  offices,  who  \vere  fraudulently  counted  in  at  the  late 
election,  have  felt  obliged  by  their  sense  of  honor  and  self- 
respect  to  decline  the  offices  to  which  they  were  not  lawfully 
elected.  I  do  not  deny  that  Mr.  Sherman's  huge  budget  of 
evidence  makes  a  frightful  showing  of  Democratic  intimida 
tion,  violence  and  political  murder,  but  it  is  not  only  badly 
tainted  with  well  founded  suspicion,  as  I  have  shown,  but 
fatally  contradicted  by  counter  testimony.  This  is  true  of 
the  evidence  generally,  but  especially  so  as  to  what  are  called 
the  five  "bulldozing"  parishes  of  the  state.  So  far  as  Dem 
ocratic  intimidation  is  concerned,  the  elections  in  the  ma 
jority  if  not  in  all  these  parishes  were  as  fair  and  as  peacea 
ble  as  those  in  our  own  state  on  the  same  day,  and  the  con 
spicuous  and  controlling  fact  respecting  the  attempt  to  prove 
the  contrary  is  the  dishonesty  and  perjury  of  the  witnesses 
employed  in  the  undertaking.  I  make  this  statement  in  the 
face  of  the  evidence  on  both  sides,  and  am  confident  it  will 
be  verified  by  the  developments  of  the  congressional  commit 
tees  now  at  work  in  the  state.  One  fact,  at  all  events,  is  ab 
solutely  certain,  and  that  is  that  the  Republican  evidence, 
when  confronted  by  that  on  the  other  side,  signally  fails  to 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  1.71 

justify  the  rejection  of  the  vote  of  the  parishes,  while  the  very 
utmost  that  any  reasonable  Republican  can  possibly  claim  is 
the  existence  of  a  conflict  in  the  evidence.  Neither  in  these 
parishes  nor  in  the  state  at  large,  either  on  the  day  of  the 
election  or  during  the  period  of  registration,  does  the  evi 
dence  show  any  such  acts  of  intimidation  or  violence  as  to 
justify  the  havoc  which  was  made  of  the  vote  of  the  state  as 
shown  on  the  face  of  the  returns  ;  and  I  have  no  hesitation 
in  affirming  that  Hayes  and  Wheeler  have  no  better  right  to 
the  electoral  vote  of  Ohio  than  have  Tilden  and  Hendricks 
to  that  of  Louisiana,  as  fairly  shown  by  the  legal  returns 
which  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party  are  now  resolved 
to  set  aside  by  the  foul  methods  of  perjury  and  fraud. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  thus  dealt  with  this  Louisiana  ques 
tion  somewhat  fully  and  thoroughly  because  of  its  fearful 
magnitude  and  the  grave  consequences  which  wait  upon  its 
decision.  If  I  am  right  in  the  views  I  have  expressed  and 
the  conclusions  I  have  reached,  Louisiana  has  cast  her  vote 
for  Tilden  and  Hendricks,  and  they  are  fairly  and  certainly 
elected.  But  in  contemplation  of  law  no  election  has  taken 
place  until  '*  the  president  of  the  senate  shall,  in  the  presence 
of  the  senate  and  house  of  representatives,  open  all  the  cer 
tificates,  and  the  votes  shall  then  be  counted/'  Who  is  to 
count  these  votes  !  Upon  the  answer  to  this  question  de 
pends  the  issue  of  the  most  fearful  struggle  for  the  Presi 
dency  that  has  ever  stirred  the  passions  of  the  American 
people.  It  was  a  struggle  altogether  unexampled  in  the 
efforts  put  forth  by  powerful  political  organizations  for  vic 
tory,  where  defeat  meant  political  death  ;  and  when,  at  last, 
the  protracted  and  angry  conflict  was  hushed  by  the  ballots 
of  the  people,  a  feeling  of  relief  was  universal  throughout 
the  Union.  Shall  these  ballots  be  smirched  and  dishonored 
by  a  conclave  of  political  scoundrels  in  Louisiana?  The 
presiding  officer  of  the  Senate,  we  are  told,  is  to  decide  this 
question.  He  is  to  be  the  grand  returning  board  of  the  na 
tion,  from  whose  decision  there  is  no  appeal.  Mr.  Chair 
man,  he  has  no  more  right  to  count  the  votes  and  declare  the 


172  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

result  than  you  have.  On  this  subject  we  are  fortunately  not 
left  to  grope  in  the  dark.  According  to  an  unbroken  chain 
of  precedents,  beginning  with  the  election  of  Washington 
and  reaching  down  to  the  present  time,  the  counting  of  the 
electoral  vote  is  to  be  done  by  Congress,  or  under  its  au 
thority  and  direction.  Universal  acquiescence  in  this  un 
interrupted  usage  has  made  it  our  common  law.  The  Presi 
dent  of  the  Senate  is  authorized  to  preserve  order,  and  to 
vote  in  case  of  a  division  ;  but  he  has  no  right  whatever  to 
canvass  or  count  the  vote  for  President,  nor  has  any  such 
right  ever  been  claimed  by  any  presiding  officer  of  that  body 
at  any  time  or  under  any  circumstances.  On  the  contrary, 
the  two  houses  of  Congress  have  always  claimed  and  exer 
cised  it,  either  directly  or  by  committees  and  tellers  ap 
pointed  for  the  purpose.  The  twenty-second  joint  rule,  which 
was  adopted  in  1865  by  a  Republican  Congress,  and  under 
which  three  Presidents  have  been  elected,  was  an  express 
recognition  of  this  principle,  which  has  the  recorded  ap 
proval  of  nearly  all  the  leading  men  of  both  political  parties 
during  the  past  year.  But  now,  after  the  meaning  of  the 
constitution  has  thus  been  settled  and  stereotyped  by  the 
uniform  usage  of  more  than  eighty  years,  and  a  conformity 
to  this  usage  will  no  longer  serve  the  behests  of  the  party  in 
power,  its  leaders  suddenly  face  upon  the  record  they  have 
made  in  the  Senate  within  the  past  nine  or  ten  months, 
and  propose  to  save  their  political  fortunes  by  the  revolution 
ary  exploit  I  have  mentioned. 

While  Grantism,  stretched  on  its  bed  of  death,  is  gasping 
out  its  prayer  for  deliverance  from  the  judgment  to  come, 
the  political  mercenaries  who  have  served  at  its  altar  for  the 
past  eight  years  now  assume  the  office  of  physician,  and  are 
anxious  to  save  the  life  of  their  patient  by  nostrums  of  deadly 
poison  to  the  constitution.  Shall  we  allow  this  to  be  done? 
Are  we  to  sit  quietly  by  while  the  republic  is  Mexicanized 
by  the  senatorial  junto  of  malignants  who  have  so  long  kept 
themselves  in  the  front  by  making  the  late  war  the  harlot  of 
their  ambition?  Shall  we  patiently  submit  to  an  act  of  open 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  173 

lawlessness,  and  seek  our  relief  in  its  moral  effect  upon  the 
people  in  sweeping  the  Republican  party  out  of  power  four 
years  hence?  If  we  cravenly  tolerate  this  rape  of  American 
liberty  to-day,  shall  we  have  the  manhood  in  1880  to  con 
front  the  kindred  outrages  it  would  certainly  provoke?  Why 
wait  four  years  for  a  remedy,  when  we  hold  it  in  our  own 
hands  now,  through  the  Congress  of  the  United  States? 
Why  talk  about  an  appeal  to  the  ballot  for  the  redress  of  our 
wrongs  hereafter,  if  we  allow  it  to  become  a  cheat  and  a  lie 
to-day?  Shall  the  people's  will,  constitutionally  expressed, 
be  defeated  and  defied  by  an  organized  crusade  against  the 
very  principles  of  republican  government?  These  questions 
can  neither  be  postponed  nor  evaded.  The  crisis  compels 
us  to  ponder  them,  in  seeking  an  honorable  way  out  of  the 
dreadful  dilemma  in  which  the  country  is  placed.  Not  in 
submission  to  flagrant  acts  of  tyranny,  but  in  resistance, 
must  we  expect  our  deliverance.  Senator  Morton  and  his 
fellow-conspirators  tell  us  that  the  President  of  the  Senate 
will  count  the  electoral  vote  and  declare  the  result,  and  that, 
if  need  be,  it  will  be  enforced  by  the  army  and  navy.  This 
is  simply  a  threat  of  revolution.  Are  we  ready  to  avow  our 
willingness  to  acquiesce  in  it  for  the  sake  of  peace,  and  thus 
invite  the  very  mischief  we  deplore  by  offering  it  impunity? 
No.  friend  of  Tilden  and  Hendricks  dreams  of  physical  re 
sistance  to  the  inauguration  of  Governor  Hayes,  should  he 
be  declared  duly  elected  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Repre 
sentatives.  The  vital  question  before  the  country  is  not 
which  of  two  men  shall  be  President,  but  whether  the  man 
who  has  been  elected  shall  be  deprived  of  his  office  by  fraud 
or  force.  It  is  because  we  advocate  peace,  and  recoil  from 
the  thought  of  civil  strife,  that  we  demand  obedience  to  the 
constitution  and  American  fair  play  in  the  settlement  of  the 
momentous  issue  which  now  so  fearfully  divides  the  country. 
We  plead  for  peace,  and  the  calamities  of  war  can  only  over 
take  us  through  the  madness  which  shall  set  the  constitution 
and  laws  at  defiance.  It  is  for  the  sake  of  peace  that  we 
would  warn  these  plotters  of  treason  that  their  enterprise  will 


174  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

be  resisted  if  they  undertake  it,  and  that  the  solemn  duty  of 
the  people  to  maintain  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  gov 
ernment  will  make  resistance  inevitable,  unless  they  are 
ready  to  put  on  the  livery  of  slaves. 

We  make  our  appeal  to  public  opinion,  which  Daniel 
Webster  pronounced  "the  mightiest  power  on  earth,"  and 
we  invoke  that  power  in  the  work  of  curbing  the  evil  genius 
of  the  men  whose  unbridled  ambition  has  palsied  their  reason 
and  devoured  their  love  of  country.  I  do  not  believe  the 
scourge  of  war  is  in  store  for  us,  but  it  can  only  be 
certainly  averted  by  the  people  themselves,  pronouncing 
their  convictions  and  purposes  with  such  unmistakable  ear 
nestness  and  emphasis  prior  to  the  day  of  counting  the  elec 
toral  vote  as  shall  foreshadow  certain  disaster  to  any  rev 
olutionary  movement.  By  argument,  by  persuasion,  by 
persistent  appeals  to  the  judgment  of  all  sober  and  patri 
otic  men  of  whatever  party,  and  by  popular  assemblies 
throughout  the  country  of  earnest  and  determined  men, 
such  as  we  see  here  to-day,  I  believe  a  public  conscience 
may  be  created  that  will  drive  the  Republican  leaders  from 
their  purpose.  In  this  work  of  popular  agitation  every  citi 
zen  should  share.  The  seriousness  of  the  crisis  demands  his 
voice  on  the  side  of  law  and  in  the  interest  of  peace.  "  I  like 
a  clamor,"  said  Edmund  Burke,  "  where  there  is  an  abuse. 
The  fire  bell  at  night  disturbs  your  sleep,  but  it  keeps  you 
from  being  burned  in  your  bed."  Let  the  people  speak,  for 
they  hold  in  their  hands  the  might  of  the  republic,  and  their 
sovereignty  can  not  be  invaded  without  their  consent.  A 
century  ago  our  fathers  took  up  arms  in  defense  of  their 
right  to  a  voice  in  the  government  which  dealt  with  their 
liberty,  their  property  and  their  lives.  We  assert  the  same 
right  now  when  we  ask  that  the  will  of  the  people  be  regis 
tered  as  the  supreme  law,  and  that  whoever  may  defy  it  by 
overt  acts  shall  receive  the  same  treatment  which  the  nation 
awarded  to  the  men  who  appealed  from  the  ballot  to  the 
bayonet  in  1861.  Let  them  be  warned  in  season  by  every 
lover  of  regulated  liberty  that  millions  of  men  will  be  found 


THE    FRAUD    OF   1876.  175 

ready  to  offer  their  lives  as  hostages  to  the  sacredness  of  the 
ballot,  as  the  palladium  of  our  liberty.  "Whosoever  hath 
the  gift  of  tongues,  let  him  use  it;  whosoever  can  wield  the 
pen  of  a  ready  writer,  let  him  dip  it  in  the  ink-horn  ;  whoso 
ever  hath  a  sword,  let  him  gird  it  on,  for  the  crisis  demands 
our  highest  exertions,  physical  and  moral." 


THE  ISSUES  OF  1880. 

CHARACTER  OF  THE  CANDIDATES 


DELIVERED  IN  THE  WIGWAM,  AT  INDIANAPOLIS,  ON  THE  24x11 

OF  AUGUST. 


[The  thoroughness  and  fairness  with  which  this  speech  dealt  with  the  issues 
of  the  canvass  made  it  peculiarly  valuable  and  effective  as  a  campaign  docu 
ment.] 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Fellow- Citizens:  In  entering  upon  the 
canvass  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks  four  years  ago,  I  expressly 
reserved  my  entire  political  independence.  In  doing  so  I  was 
not  inconsistent  with  my  previous  record  as  a  politician. 
Through  the  influence  of  early  associations  I  began  my  po 
litical  life  a  Whig,  casting  my  first  Presidential  ballot  for 
General  Harrison,  and  my  second  for  Henry  Clay.  In  1848, 
however,  after  I  had  become  convinced  that  my  party  was 
radically  wrong  in  its  tariff  and  land  policy,  and  when  I 
found  it  sacrificing  its  character  and  conscience  on  the  altar 
of  slavery,  I  severed  my  connection  with  it,  and  during  the 
seven  or  eight  years  following  was  an  active  and  zealous 
member  of  the  old  Free  Soil  party.  But  in  1856  I  was  quite 
ready  to  join  another  organization,  committed  to  the  same  ar 
ticles  of  anti-slavery  faith,  and  better  fitted  to  carry  forward 
the  grand  enterprise  in  which  I  had  enlisted.  I  was  a  Repub 
lican  of  Republicans,  and  if  I  sometimes  differed  with  my  party 
associates  it  was  because  I  espoused  the  logic  of  the  party 
creed  before  they  were  ready  to  accept  it.  During  the  late  wai% 
especially,  I  was  a  most  thoroughgoing  party  man,  for  the 
obvious  reason  that  in  a  crisis  involving  the  nation's  life  I 
could  best  serve  the  great  cause  by  losing  myself  in  the 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  177 

masses  with  whom  I  acted.  But  when  the  war  ended  and 
the  great  national  curse  which  made  the  existence  of  the 
Republican  party  a  necessity  had  perished  forever,  and 
when,  as  I  said  four  years  ago,  the  marvellous  energy  dis 
played  by  it  during  the  conflict  had  been  hopelessly  turned 
into  the  channels  of  pelf  and  plunder,  I  joined  the  Liberal 
Republicans  in  marching  out  of  it,  under  the  banner  of  in 
dependence  and  reform. 

I  refer  to  these  personal  matters  in  no  spirit  of  vain  boast 
ing,  but  simply  in  illustration  of  the  duty  of  every  man  to  be 
faithful  to  himself,  even  against  the  pleadings  of  prudence 
and  peace.  Nor  do  I  wish  to  be  understood  as  condemning 
political  parties.  They  are  a  necessity.  They  are  an  essen 
tial  part  of  the  machinery  through  which  the  vigilance  of  the 
people  is  able  to  preserve  their  liberties.  The  great  danger 
of  our  times  is  that  excess  of  party  spirit  against  which 
Washington  so  solemnly  warned  his  countrymen  in  his  fare 
well  address,  and  which  now  seriously  threatens  the  suppres 
sion  of  individual  thought  and  action.  The  path  of  politi 
cal  independence  is  by  no  means  an  inviting  one.  It  offers 
the  fewest  possible  temptations  to  selfish  ambition.  Inde 
pendent  voters  are  generally  obliged  to  make  themselves  of 
no  reputation.  They  can  parade  no  grand  procession  of  fol 
lowers.  They  are  allowed  none  of  the  triumphs  of  victory, 
and  rewarded  by  none  of  the  spoils  of  office.  They  are 
obliged  to  face  the  general  hostility  and  scorn  which  the 
smallness  of  their  numbers  and  frequent  potency  of  their 
action  naturally  provoke.  Senator  Conkling  styles  them 
" Jayhawkers,"  "Guerrillas,"  and  "Tramps."  They  are 
sometimes  called  "  Deputy  Democrats,"  "  malcontents,''  and 
"  impracticables"  who  "vote  in  the  air;"  but  they  often 
prove  to  be  the  true  conservative  force  in  our  politics  and  the 
real  leaven  of  reform. 

Undoubtedly  they  are  liable  to  make  mistakes.  Their 
lack  of  organization  is  certainly  attended  by  serious  disad 
vantages.  Their  usefulness  was  greatly  compromised  by 
their  leaders  in  the  spring  of  1876  in  their  famous  New  York 
12 


178  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

conference,  in  which  they  laid  down  the  precise  conditions 
on  which  they  declared  they  would  co-operate  with  the  other 
parties,  and  then  made  haste  to  join  one  of  them  after  those 
conditions  had  been  openly  spurned.  They  betrayed  vacil 
lation  and  weakness  at  the  critical  moment  which  called  for 
straightforwardness  and  courage  ;  but  their  power  in  our 
politics  is  unquestionable,  and  their  persistent  determination 
to  exercise  it  is  one  of  the  signs  of  the  times.  Independent 
voters  defeated  Clay  in  1844  and  General  Cass  in  1848.  They 
destroyed  the  old  Whig  party,  and  formed  a  new  organiza 
tion,  composed  of  Abolitionists,  "  Conscience  Whigs,"  and 
bolting  Democrats.  The  Republican  party  itself  was  a  bolt. 
It  was  principally  made  up  of  "  jayhawkers  "  and  "  tramps," 
who  broke  away  from  their  Democratic  and  Whig  keepers, 
and  made  common  cause  with  the  old  Free-Soilers  in  with 
standing  the  further  exactions  of  slavery  ;  and  the  existence 
of  the  great  historic  party  would  have  been  impossible  if  the 
old  Whigs  who  formed  the  great  body  of  it  had  been  as 
fatally  smitten  with  party  devil-worship  as  are  the  Republi 
cans  to-day.  Independent  voters  in  1860  rent  the  Demo 
cratic  party  in  twain,  and  made  Abraham  Lincoln  President. 
In  1872  the  Republicans  carried  the  state  of  New  York  by  a 
majority  of  50,000  votes  ;  but  in  1874  tne  Democrats  tri 
umphed  by  the  same  majority,  thus  showing  that  the  state 
was  not  divided  into  two  parties,  but  three,  inasmuch  as  the 
potency  of  the  party  battle-cry  was  dependent  upon  outside 
help.  So  in  the  party  divisions  of  to  day  there  is  a  third 
element,  not  under  the  drill  of  either,  which  holds  the 'bal 
ance  of  power,  and  illustrates  the  noteworthy  fact  that  in 
free  governments  minorities  often  rule.  The  independent 
voters  held  the  balance  of  power  in  the  nation,  and  wielded 
it  four  years  ago,  as  they  probably  will  in  the  canvass  of  this 
year.  As  the  make-weight  in  party  divisions  they  are  fre 
quently  able  to  create  the  majority  they  desire,  and  this  in 
vests  their  action  with  a  commanding  importance.  They 
played  their  part  in  the  late  Chicago  convention  in  defeating 
the  third-term  conspiracy,  and  preserving  the  great  unwrit- 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  179 

ten  law  of  the  republic  from  violation.  The  fear  of  exten 
sive  bolting  in  the  strong  Republican  states,  should  Grant  be 
nominated,  was  in  the  air,  and  doubtless  restrained  many  del 
egates  who  would  else  have  fallen  into  the  Grant  column 
under  the  whip  and  spur  of  Conkling,  Cameron  and  Logan. 
You  all  remember  how  the  nation  held  its  breath  while  the 
fearful  issue  hung  in  doubt ;  and  when,  at  last,  the  question 
was  settled,  and  the  lightning  flashed  the  glad  tidings  over 
the  continent  and  kindled  in  millions  of  hearts  an  answering 
thrill  of  gratitude  to  God  for  the  deliverance  of  the  nation 
from  a  great  peril,  I  rejoiced  that,  for  eight  years,  by  tongue 
and  pen,  I  had  contributed  my  small  quota  toward  the  grand 
work,  and  that  its  final  triumph  was  largely  due  to  the  "  guer 
rillas  "  with  whom  I  had  co-operated. 

But  let  us  consider  the  issues  of  the  pending  canvass. 
What  are  they?  The  platforms  of  the  two  parties  give  us  lit 
tle  help  in  answering  this  question.  They  are  as  nearly  iden 
tical  as  those  of  four  years  ago.  If  there  was  any  party  is 
sue  then  it  related  to  the  question  of  finance  ;  but  both  par 
ties  declared  in  favor  of  specie  payments,  as  they  do  now,  and 
while  the  Democrats  demanded  the  repeal  of  the  resumption 
act,  the  Republicans  voted  down  a  resolution  in  favor  of  car 
rying  it  into  execution.  In  the  last  Congress  Republicans 
and  Democrats  united  in  the  effort  to  repeal  it,  and  they  were 
jointly  entitled  to  the  honor  of  defeating  that  effort.  The 
financial  question  has  since  been  complicated  by  the  silver 
agitation  ;  but  the  silver  bill  received  the  overwhelming  sup 
port  of  both  parties,  while  the  Republicans  now  totally  ignore 
the  question,  and  its  vital  connection  with  the  continuance  of 
our  paper  currency  at  par.  As  to  the  constantly  boasted 
achievement  of  resumption,  the  simple  truth  is  that  it  has  not 
come  through  legislation,  but  as  the  natural  result  of  favor 
ing  conditions,  just  as  the  gratifying  reduction  of  our  nation 
al  indebtedness  has  been  made  easy  and  almost  inevitable 
by  our  marvellous  resources.  I  am  glad  to  see  in  the  plat 
forms  a  well-defined  issue  respecting  our  tariff  policy  ;  for 
sooner  or  later  our  stupid  and  vicious  tariff  laws  must  be 


l8o  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

thoroughly  overhauled  and  reformed  ;  but  no  intelligent  man 
of  either  party  feels  that  the  contest  of  this  year  is  to  turn 
upon  that  question.  Nor  is  any  issue  tendered  on  the  sub 
ject  of  civil  service  reform,  Chinese  immigration,  or  the  res 
ervation  of  the  public  domain  to  actual  settlers  ;  while  in  the 
matter  of  maintaining  the  purity  of  the  ballot  and  the  princi 
ples  of  political  morality,  both  parties  are  wanting.  The 
complexion  of  our  politics,  in  fact,  is  peculiar.  We  have 
outlived  the  era  in  which  clearly-defined  questions  of  policy 
formed  the  pivots  upon  which  the  action  of  parties  turned, 
and  justified  their  existence  as  the  means  through  which  they 
sought  the  adoption  of  their  cherished  views  by  the  govern 
ment.  In  a  political  dispensation  so  anomalous  the  army  of 
independent  voters  should  be  largely  reinforced  ;  but  since 
one  of  these  parties  will  certainly  rule  the  country  for  the 
next  four  years,  the  question  submitted  to  the  popular  judg 
ment  is  a  general  one,  involving  simply  the  choice  to  be 
made  between  them,  and  the  personal  qualities  of  their  stan 
dard-bearers.  How  should  the  sincere  friends  of  adminis 
trative  reform  and  the  purification  of  our  debased  politics 
cast  their  ballots? 

The  answer  to  this  question  necessarily  invites  a  compari 
son  of  these  parties  ;  but  the  task  is  not  altogether  free  from 
difficulties.  One  of  them  has  been  in  power  nearly  twenty 
years,  and  has  thus  supplied  us  with  very  ample  means  of 
forming  an  opinion  ;  while  the  other  has  been  out  of  power 
nearly  the  whole  of  this  period,  and  has  necessarily  left  us 
with  a  comparatively  meager  data  of  judgment.  Senator 
Hoar,  in  his  opening  speech  at  the  Chicago  convention,  told 
us  that  the  parties  which  confronted  each  other  in  1860  con 
front  each  other  now,  "  unchanged  in  purpose,  in  temper  and 
in  character."  If  this  is  true,  the  question  is  greatly  simpli 
fied,  and  can  be  readily  decided.  But  the  assertion  is  an 
affront  to  common  sense  and  a  reckless  defiance  of  facts,  and 
if  he  believes  it  he  is  pitiably  infatuated  by  party  blindness. 
The  attitude  of  these  parties  twenty  years  ago,  at  all  events, 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  l8l 

has  no  necessary  connection  with  the  question  of  their  fitness 
for  civil  administration  to-day.  The  Democratic  party  was 
then  divided  on  two  rival  candidates  for  the  Presidency, 
and  after  the  election  of  Lincoln  a  very  formidable  division 
of  it  appealed  from  the  ballot  to  the  bayonet  as  its  last  and 
desperate  method  of  preserving  the  ascendency  of  slavery. 
The  result  was  the  overthrow  of  secession,  the  extirpation  of 
slavery,  the  enfranchisement  of  the  negro  and  the  reconstruc 
tion  of  the  government.  The  resistless  force  of  events  com 
pletely  changed  the  political  horizon  ;  and  now,  in  the  new 
heavens  and  the  new  earth  which  we  witness,  we  find  the 
Democratic  party,  north  and  south,  east  and  west,  united  as 
one  man  under  the  banner  of  one  of  the  foremost  heroes  in 
the  war  for  the  Union.  It  is  not  the  Democratic  party  of 
1860,  but  the  Democratic  party  of  1880,  inevitably  -molded 
and  instructed  by  great  historic  events  ;  and  we  are  to  judge 
it  in  the  light  of  to-day  and  the  interest  of  the  people  of  all 
sections  in  national  unity  and  peace.  We  have  no  right  to 
reproach  it  for  an  administrative  record  which  it  has  had  no 
opportunity  to  make,  nor  to  condemn  it  on  Mr.  Hoar's  in 
genious  theory  of  constructive  guilt  and  imputed  depravity. 
The  same  reasoning  applies  to  the  Republican  party.  Twentv 
years  ago  it  disavowed  any  right  or  purpose  to  interfere  with 
slavery  in  the  states.  It  denounced  John  Brown's  raid  into 
Virginia  as  "the  gravest  of  crimes. ''  At  the  beginning  of 
the  war  it  was  willing,  for  the  sake  of  peace,  to  abide  by  the 
Dred  Scott  decision  and  the  enforcement  of  the  fugitive  slave 
act.  If  I  have  not  forgotten,  it  was  ready  to  surrender  the 
principle  of  Congressional  prohibition  of  slavery  in  all  our 
national  territories.  It  even  favored  an  amendment  to  the 
constitution  making  slavery  perpetual  in  the  states  of  the 
south.  For  nearly  two  years  after  the  war  began  it  did  its 
best  to  save  the  Union  and  save  slavery  with  it,  and  after  the 
war  was  over  it  offered  to  make  a  complete  surrender  of  the 
freedmen  to  their  old  masters  on  the  single  condition  that  they 
should  not  be  counted  in  the  basis  of  representation.  The  fit- 


l82  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

ness  of  the  party  to  administer  the  government  now  is  not  to 
be  judged  by  these  facts,  nor  is  it  by  any  means  established 
by  its  grand  achievements  in  crushing  the  rebellion  and 
abolishing  slavery,  in  which  it  had  the  powerful  and  indis 
pensable  co-operation  of  the  Democrats.  We  are  now  in  the 
sunshine  of  peace,  and  must  be  mainly  guided  in  our  judg 
ment  by  the  facts  which  make  up  the  civil  administration  of 
the  government  since  the  close  of  the  war  and  the  settlement 
of  the  questions  it  involved.  What  claim  has  the  Republican 
party  to  a  longer  lease  of  power,  founded  on  the  record  it  has 
made  during  the  past  dozen  years?  This  is  the  question 
which  now  concerns  us,  and  in  seeking  an  answer  to  it  let  us 
remember  that  it  is  the  future,  and  not  the  distant  past,  which 
chiefly  interests  us,  and  that  the  reformation  of  great  political 
abuses  has  become  the  vital  issue  and  pressing  demand  of  the 
time. 

In  its  national  convention  of  1868  the  Republican  party 
adopted  the  following  resolutions  as  a  part  of  its  platform  : 

"  The  government  of  the  United  States  should  be  admin 
istered  with  the  strictest  economy  ;  and  the  corruptions  which 
have  been  so  shamefully  nursed  and  fostered  by  Andrew 
Johnson  call  loudly  for  reform." 

These  were  timely  words.  The  responsibility  laid  at  the 
door  of  the  President  was  exaggerated,  but  the  hand  of  re 
form  was  urgently  invoked  by  the  situation.  All  the  great 
industries  of  the  country  demanded  a  thorough  reorganization. 
Our  tariff  legislation  called  for  a  thorough  revision.  Our 
finances  invited  a  prompt  and  complete  overhauling.  Our 
civil  service  was  becoming  a  shameless  system  of  political 
prostitution.  Roguery  and  plunder,  born  of  the  multiplied 
temptations  which  the  war  furnished,  had  stealthily  crept  into 
the  management  of  public  affairs,  and  claimed  immunity  from 
the  right  of  search.  What  the  country  needed  was  not  a 
stricter  enforcement  of  party  discipline,  not  military  methods 
and  the  fostering  of  sectional  bitterness  and  hate,  but  oblivion 
of  the  past,  both  North  and  South,  and  an  earnest,  intelligent, 


THE    ISSUES    OF    l88o.  183 

and  catholic  endeavor  to  grapple  with  the  problems  of  practi 
cal  administration. 

But  what  did  the  leaders  of  the  party  do?  After  the  free 
dom  and  enfranchisement  of  the  negro  had  been  established 
by  constitutional  amendments  in  which  all  parties  acquiesced, 
they  seemed  utterly  incapable  of  realizing  the  fact.  They 
were  not  willing,  for  a  single  moment,  to  relax  their  hold 
upon  the  party  machinery.  The  animosities  engendered  by 
the  war  were  to  be  nursed  and  coddled  as  the  appointed 
means  of  party  unity,  while  the  party  itself  was  regarded  as 
a  permanent  establishment,  like  the  Christian  religion,  di 
vinely  appointed  and  necessary  to  salvation.  It  was  not  to 
be  maintained  for  the  legitimate  purpose  of  embodying  cer 
tain  doctrines  and  policies  in  legislation,  but  chiefly  on  the 
score  of  its  general  blessedness,  and  its  immense  usefulness 
in  holding  in  check  a  purely  santanic  opposition.  This  view 
was  openly  avowed  by  some  of  its  great  champions,  who  de 
clared,  as  they  do  to-day,  that  the  party  is  no  more  responsi 
ble  for  the  corruptions  and  defalcations  of  its  leaders  than  the 
church  for  the  individual  sins  of  its  priests  and  prelates.  Of 
course,  the  continued  existence  of  such  an  organization  was 
indispensable,  not  only  to  the  welfare,  but  the  life  of  the  Re 
public,  against  which  the  "  rebels  "  were  still  plotting,  while 
it  was  strangely  taken  for  granted  that  its  disruption  would 
immediately  be  followed  by  the  translation  of  the  honest  men 
who  belonged  to  it  to  another  and  better  world,  instead  of 
leaving  them  among  us  to  serve  the  country  under  some 
other  banner  and  a  better  leadership.  This  concubinage  of 
politics  and  theology  was  a  very  tempting  contrivance,  since 
it  would  place  the  administration  of  the  government  in  the 
hands  of  the  Republicans  forever.  It  is  true  that  the  corrupt 
and  venal  elements  of  society  would  inevitably  gravitate  into 
such  a  party  through  its  prolonged  hold  on  power,  and  finally 
form  a  perfect  hierarchy  of  knaves  and  reprobates,  while  the 
good  men  in  its  ranks  would  be  obliged  to  keep  their  places, 
instead  of  joining  the  other  side  or  becoming  the  nucleus  of 
a  new  party  ;  but  this  would  be  less  dreadful  than  the  ruin  of 


184  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

the  county  in  the  hands  of  an  organization  hopelessly  dis 
loyal  and  depraved. 

The  management  of  public  affairs  during  General  Grant's 
first  term  was  in  accord  with  this  new  theory  of  politics.  The 
mercenary  and  trading  element  of  the  party  naturally  came  to 
the  front,  and  became  a  regular  purgatory  of  political  unclean- 
ness.  I  need  not  recite  the  story  of  its  shameful  performances. 
You  know  it  by  heart.  The  people  will  not  soon  forget  the 
exploits  of  Tom  Murphy  in  the  New  York  custom  house, 
and  the  plundering  of  New  York  merchants  by  Leet  and 
Stocking  ;  the  sanctioned  rascalities  of  Casey  in  New  Or 
leans  ;  the  executive  assumption  of  the  war-making  power  in 
the  affair  of  San  Domingo;  the  violation  of  the  President's 
oath  of  omce  in  the  appointment  to  civil  places  of  men  in  the 
military  service  ;  the  official  corruption  of  Orville  Grant, 
Powell  Clayton,  General  Babcock,  Boss  Sheppard  and  kin 
dred  spirits,  who  shared  the  smiles  of  the  President :  the 
party  expulsion  of  Charles  Sumner  from  the  chairmanship  of 
the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  and  the  installation  of 
Simon  Cameron  in  his  stead  ;  the  action  of  the  famous  "  sen 
atorial  group  "  in  denouncing  every  proposition  looking  to 
the  reform  of  administrative  abuses,  and  branding  as  enemies 
of  the  Republican  party  the  distinguished  members  of  it  who 
demanded  such  reform  ;  and  the  open  and  systematic  repu 
diation  of  all  attempts  to  purify  the  civil  service,  while  falsely 
pretending  to  espouse  them.  All  this  has  become  apart  of 
the  history  of  the  government,  and  forms  the  first  half  of  that 
"  moral  interregnum  "  in  our  politics  which  is  best  indicated 
by  the  word  "  Grantism,"  and  fairly  entitles  it  to  a  place  in 
our  growing  dictionary  of  Americanisms.  Indeed,  so  fla 
grantly  did  the  prophets  of  this  new  dispensation  belie  all 
their  professions,  that  nearly  a  year  before  the  end  of  Gen 
eral  Grant's  first  term,  the  chief  founders  and  preeminent 
representatives  of  the  party  were  obliged  to  desert  it  as  the 
only  means  of  preserving  their  honor  and  self-respect. 

But  the  men  who  had  so  marvellously  succeeded  to  the 
leadership  of  the  party  which  signalized  its  early  life  by  its 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  185 

championship  of  the  rights  of  man,  had  now  only  entered 
upon  the  threshold  of  their  career.  Nothing  daunted  by  their 
record,  and  holding  fast  their  theory  that  the  existence  of 
the  party  was  absolutely  necessary  to  save  the  country  from 
rebel  ascendency,  these  body-guards  of  the  President  en 
trenched  themselves  behind  its  early  achievements  and  pre 
vious  good  character  while  plotting  his  nomination  and  elec 
tion  for  a  second  term.  He  was  re-nominated  as  their  stand 
ard-bearer  by  the  national  convention  of  1872,  which  incorpor 
ated  into  its  platform  the  following  resolution  : 

"Any  system  of  the  civil  service  under  which  the  subor 
dinate  positions  of  the  government  are  considered  rewards 
for  mere  party  zeal  is  fatally  demoralizing,  and  we  therefore 
favor  a  reform  of  the  system  by  laws  which  shall  abolish  the 
evils  of  patronage,  and  make  honesty,  efficiency  and  fidelity 
the  essential  qualifications  for  public  positions." 

On  this  platform  General  Grant  was  nominated  unani 
mously.  Notwithstanding  the  revolting  record  he  had  made, 
he  was  chosen  by  286  electoral  votes,  and  a  popular  majority 
of  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  million,  carrying  thirty-one  of 
the  thirty-seven  states,  while  Horace  Greeley,  for  refusing  to 
follow  his  party  and  earnestly  seeking  the  reform  of  great 
abuses  which  had  found  shelter  under  the  strife  of  sections, 
was  branded  as  a  traitor,  and  hunted  to  his  grave  by  politi 
cal  assassins.  But  what  was  the  record  of  the  party  during 
Grant's  second  term?  In  comparison  with  it  his  first  admin 
istration  was  next  to  immaculate.  I  hope  you  have  not  for 
gotten  the  Republican  "  Rogues'  Gallery  "  which  I  painted 
four  years  ago.  You  will  remember  that  the  civil  service 
rules,  which  had  been  framed  during  his  first  term,  now  be 
came  a  more  glaring  political  mockery  than  ever  before.  You 
have  not  forgotten  his  disgusting  prostitution  of  the  civil 
service  in  connection  with  his  brother-in-law  Casey ;  the 
prompt  appointment  of  Sheppard  as  one  of  the  Commissioners 
of  the  District  of  Columbia,  after  its  government  had  been 
abolished  in  order  to  get  rid  of  him  ;  his  sympathy  with  the 
safe-burglary  criminals,  and  official  aid  to  his  brother  Orville 


I 86  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

in  making  merchandise  of  post-traderships  ;  the  disgrace  of 
the  Department  of  Justice  by  Attorney-General  Williams, 
which  was  followed  by  his  appointment  as  Chief  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  ;  the  crime  of  Secre 
tary  Belknap,  and  the  unsavory  performances  of  Secretary 
Delano  ;  the  President's  hostility  to  Secretary  Bristow  and 
his  subordinates  for  their  efforts  to  hunt  down  whisky-thieves, 
and  his  undisguised  sympathy  for  General  Babcock  and 
other  criminals ;  his  personal  lobbying  in  both  houses  of 
Congress  for  the  passage  of  the  salary  theft ;  his  defense  of 
the  moiety  system,  by  which  the  revenues  of  the  country 
were  farmed  out  to  his  favorites  ;  his  friendship  for  the  horde 
of  thieves  and  demagogues  who  had  fastened  themselves  like 
leeches  upon  the  people  of  the  South,  and  were  backed  by 
the  whole  power  of  the  administration  ;  and  the  entire  system 
of  carpet-bag  spoliation  and  bayonet  rule  under  which  that 
section  was  given  over  to  lawlessness  and  crime.  I  need 
not  pursue  these  recitals,  and  would  gladly  draw  a  veil  over 
the  sickening  picture,  if  the  lessons  of  political  wrong-doing 
could  safely  be  slighted.  In  fact,  the  spectacle  of  our  public 
affairs  became  so  revolting  under  this  dynasty  of  huckstering 
politics  and  personal  government,  of  groveling  purposes  and 
ravenous  greed,  of  bribery  and  nepotism  and  shamelessness, 
that  before  the  middle  of  Grant's  second  term  all  the  great 
Republican  states  of  the  North  were  lost  to  the  party,  while 
leading  Republicans  began  to  agitate  the  question  of  remand 
ing  the  states  of  the  South  to  territorial  rule  on  account  of 
their  disordered  condition.  In  1868  the  Senate  contained  a 
Republican  majority  of  fifty-four  members,  and  the  House  of 
Representatives  104;  but  at  the  end  of  General  Grant's  sec 
ond  term  the  majority  in  the  Senate  had  dwindled  from  fifty- 
four  to  seventeen,  while  in  the  House  the  majority  of  104  had 
been  wiped  out  to  give  place  to  a  Democratic  majority  of 
seventy-seven.  These  were  the  inevitable  fruits  of  Grantism, 
for  its  career  had  been  inaugurated  in  its  overwhelming  as 
cendency,  and  with  the  amplest  possible  opportunities  to 
demonstrate  its  capacity  to  govern  the  country.  While  they 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  187 

completely  vindicated  the  greatly  maligned  Liberal  Repub 
licans  of  1872,  they  summoned  to  the  bar  of  history  the  party 
whose  fatal  blunder  then  brought  disgrace  upon  the  nation 
and  a  stain  upon  Republican  institutions  throughout  the 
world. 

But  let  us  still  further  continue  our  survey  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  in  the  clear  perspective  of  its  history.  Notwith 
standing  the  perfectly  defiant  repudiation  of  its  professions, 
the  party  faced  the  country  in  its  national  convention  of  1876 
with  the  following  declaration,  embodying  its  confession  of 
faith  on  the  subject  of  reform  : 

"Senators  and  representatives  who  may  be  judges  and 
accusers  should  not  dictate  appointments  to  office.  The  in 
variable  rule  for  appointments  should  have  reference  to  the 
honesty,  fidelity  and  capacity  of  appointees,  giving  to  the 
party  in  power  those  places  where  harmony  and  vigor  of 
administration  require  its  policy  to  be  represented,  but  per 
mitting  all  others  to  be  filled  by  persons  selected  with  sole 
reference  to  the  efficiency  of  the  public  service  and  the  right 
of  citizens  to  share  in  the  honor  of  rendering  faithful  service 
to  their  country." 

On  this  platform  Governor  Hayes  was  nominated,  and  he 
emphasized  it  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  in  his  inaugural 
address,  and  in  his  famous  civil  service  order,  which  followed 
a  few  months  later.  By  these  documents  he  unequivocally 
pledged  himself  that  senators  and  representatives  should 
not  dictate  appointments,  and  that  they  were  no  longer  to  be 
made  merely  as  rewards  for  partisan  services  ;  that  no  officer 
should  be  required  or  permitted  to  take  part  in  the  manage 
ment  of  political  organizations,  caucuses,  conventions  or 
election  campaigns  ;  that  no  assessments  for  political  pur 
poses  on  officers  or  subordinates  should  be  allowed,  and  that 
this  rule  was  applicable  to  every  department  of  the  civil  ser 
vice.  Here  were  promises  and  pledges  quite  as  sweeping  as 
those  which  had  been  invariably  trampled  under  foot  for 
eight  years.  How  were  they  carried  out  by  the  party  under 
its  new  leader?  Some  of  you  may  remember  the  prophecy 


1 88  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

I  made  four  years  ago,  and  my  quotation  from  Senator  Mor 
ton,  that  "in  a  government  of  parties,  like  <  urs,  the  Pres 
ident  must  have  his  friends,"  and  that  "  the  administration 
of  any  President  will  be,  in  the  main,  what  the  party  which 
elected  him  makes  it."  That  this  would  prove  true  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  Hayes  was  rendered  certain  during  the  canvass. 
Morton,  Conkling,  Elaine,  Cameron  and  Chandler  assumed 
exactly  the  same  leadership  as  if  a  politician  of  their  school 
had  been  nominated.  The  administration  of  General  Grant, 
which  had  brought  the  party  to  the  verge  of  ruin,  was  in 
dorsed  by  the  national  convention  which  nominated  his  suc 
cessor.  The  managers  of  the  canvass  studiously  avoided  all 
reference  to  civil  service  reform  and  the  letter  of  acceptance 
of  their  candidate,  while  their  conduct  constantly  assumed 
that  his  administration,  should  he  be  elected,  would  be  a 
continuation  of  that  of  General  Grant.  The  canvass,  in  fact, 
was  merely  a  renewal  of  the  struggle  between  the  policy  of 
hate  and  the  policy  of  reconciliation  which  had  so  long  di 
vided  the  people,  and  under  cover  of  which  the  Republican 
leaders  were  still  determined  to  maintain  their  hold  on  power. 
Governor  Hayes  himself  serenely  looked  on,  and  if  he  did 
not  expressly  sanction  this  mode  of  conducting  the  canvass, 
he  certainly  could  not  have  been  ignorant  of  the  issue  on 
which  the  battle  was  being  waged  and  the  methods  employed 
to  secure  the  victory.  His  election,  in  short,  was  the  unques 
tionable  triumph  of  the  "  machine  politicians,"  and  they  had 
a  perfect  right  to  claim  it  as  logically  redounding  to  their 
glory  and  advantage. 

It  was  not  a  matter  of  the  least  surprise,  therefore,  that  the 
civil  service  policy  of  the  new  President  proved  to  be  a  per 
fect  travesty  of  the  party  platform  and  his  own  declarations. 
Indeed,  the  very  beginning  of  his  administration  was  signal 
ized  by  acts  of  the  most  shameless  recreancy  to  his  pledges. 
For  several  months  following  the  election  the  result  was  in 
doubt.  It  depended  upon  the  votes  of  Florida  and  Louisiana, 
and  these  were  to  be  counted  by  state  officials  of  exceedingly 
bad  repute.  M.  L.  Stearns  was  governor  of  Florida  at  the 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  189 

time,  and,  contrary  to  law,  withheld  from  the  Tilden  electors 
the  certificates  to  which  the  returns  entitled  them,  and  gave 
certificates  to  the  Hayes  electors,  who  had  not  received  a  ma 
jority  of  the  votes  of  the  state.  Stearns  was  defeated  for  gov 
ernor  at  the  same  election  in  which  Hayes  was  held  to  have 
carried  the  state,  and  was  subsequently  appointed  one  of  the 
Hot  Springs  commissioners,  with  a  compensation  of  $10  per 
day.  McLinn  was  one  of  the  state  canvassers,  without  whose 
arbitrary  acts  in  throwing  out  Democratic  votes  Florida  would 
have  been  counted  for  Tilden.  He  was  rewarded  by  the  of 
fice  of  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  New  Mexico,  at  a  sal 
ary  of  $3,000  per  annum.  Dr.  Cowgill,  another  member  of 
the  board  of  canvassers,  received  an  appointment  in  the 
treasury  department,  which,  for  some  reason,  he  declined, 
while  L.  G.  Dennis,  chairman  of  the  Republican  committee 
of  Alachua  county;  Richard  H.  Black  and  Thomas  H. 
Vance,  who  acted  as  inspector  and  clerk  at  the  election  in 
that  county  ;  Joseph  Barnes,  inspector  of  elections  in  Leon 
county  ;  James  Bell,  of  Jefferson  county,  and  J.  W.  Howell, 
a  slippery  employe  in  the  office  of  the  clerk  of  Baker  county, 
all  received  official  recognition  for  diversified  acts  of  rascality 
and  fraud  connected  with  the  election.  These  were  remark 
able  illustrations  of  the  rule  which  made  "  honesty,  fidelity 
and  capacity,"  and  not  partisan  service,  the  test  of  fitness  for 
office.  Nor  were  the  visiting  statesmen  from  the  North,  who 
gave  their  attention  to  the  Florida  count,  overlooked.  Gov 
ernor  Noyes  was  appointed  Minister  to  France  ;  General  Lew 
Wallace  was  made  Governor  of  New  Mexico,  and  John  A. 
Kasson,  Minister  to  Austria. 

The  facts  as  to  Louisiana  are  still  worse.  Without  the 
vote  of  this  state  Hayes  could  not  be  counted  in,  and  the 
count  devolved  upon  a  returning  board  of  precious  political 
cherubs,  of  which  J.  Madison  Wells  was  president.  Their 
work  was  done  with  infernal  fidelity  to  the  Republican  party, 
and  gave  further  occasion  for  the  display  of  civil  service  re 
form.  Until  recently  Mr.  Wells  held  the  office  of  surveyor 
of  the  port  of  New  Orleans,  at  a  salary  of  $3, 500  per  annum. 


190  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

One  of  his  sons,  whom  Mr.  Hayes  recently  nominated  for 
the  position  held  by  his  father,  occupied  the  place  of  special 
deputy  surveyor  at  New  Orleans,  at  a  salary  of  $2,500  per 
annum.  Another  son  holds  the  position  of  inspector  at  New 
Orleans,  while  a  son-in-law  is  a  clerk  in  the  custom  house. 
Thomas  C.  Anderson,  another  member  of  the  returning  board, 
is  special  deputy  collector  at  New  Orleans,  at  a  salary  of 
$3,000  per  annum,  and  his  son,  his  father-in-law  and  his 
brother-in-law,  all  hold  important  places  under  the  govern 
ment.  Louis  M.  Kenner,  a  colored  member  of  the  returning 
board,  is  deputy  naval  officer  at  New  Orleans,  on  a  salary  of 
$2,500  per  annum,  while  two  of  his  brothers  hold  subordinate 
positions.  Casanave,  the  remaining  member  of  the  board, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  has  never  been  rewarded  writh  an 
office,  though  his  brother  holds  the  position  of  United  States 
storekeeper  at  New  Orleans.  But,  in  justice  to  the  adminis 
tration,  it  should  be  stated  that  after  a  heavy  judgment  had 
been  rendered  against  him  for  counsel  fees  he  had  agreed  to 
pay  for  his  defense  against  an  indictment  for  fraudulent  con 
duct  as  a  member  of  the  returning  board,  and  when,  after  an 
execution  had  been  levied  upon  his  property  for  the  satisfac 
tion  of  the  judgment,  he  came  to  Washington  and  appealed 
to  the  President  and  his  cabinet  for  financial  relief,  very 
touchingly  reminding  them  of  the  services  he  had  rendered 
in  counting  the  vote  of  his  state,  and  their  obligations  to  be 
friend  him,  the  required  amount  was  contributed,  and  Casa 
nave  sent  home  with  an  unburdened  mind.  I  need  not  say 
that  the  honors  and  emoluments  heaped  upon  these  men, 
through  whose  official  action  the  administration  mounted  to 
power,  would  have  been  an  insult  to  political  decency  and  a 
vile  caricature  of  civil  service  reform  if  there  had  been  even 
a  well-founded  suspicion  as  to  their  integrity.  I  must  add 
that  Governor  Packard  was  finally  rewarded  for  his  disgrace 
ful  career  in  Louisiana  by  the  best  consulate  in  Europe,  and 
Mr.  Stoughton  made  Minister  to  Russia,  as  a  reward,  un 
doubtedly,  for  his  services  in  carrying  the  state  for  the  Pres 
ident  in  defiance  of  '*  clerical  errors  ;  "  while  the  ringleader 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  Ipl 

of  the  gang  of  visiting  statesmen  who  went  to  New  Orleans 
"  in  the  interest  of  a  fair  count"  was  made  secretary  of  the 
United  States  treasury. 

But  the  civil  service  of  the  new  administration  has  supplied 
still  further  illustrations.  Mr.  Filley,  a  politician  and  intriguer 
of  bad  repute,  was  reappointed  postmaster  at  St.  Louis.  Gen 
eral  Babcock  continued  to  bask  in  the  sunshine  of  executive 
approval.  The  office  of  consul  general  at  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main  was  treated  as  a  personal  perquisite  of  the  President  by 
bestowing  it  upon  his  private  secretary.  A  Kentucky  lawyer 
and  partisan  was  made  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  for  timely  services  rendered  in  the  Cincinnati 
convention  in  securing  the  nomination  of  his  chief,  and  after 
ward  in  settling  the  dispute  in  Louisiana.  The  offer  of  the  En 
glish  mission  to  the  Pennsylvania  delegation  in  Congress  was 
a  palpable  disregard  of  civil  service  reform  as  the  President 
himself  had  defined  it,  and  so  was  the  offer  of  the  German  mis 
sion  to  the  delegation  from  Illinois.  He  has  allowed  his  first 
assistant  postmaster  general  to  send  out  blanks  through  the 
mails  to  members  of  Congress,  to  be  filled  by  them  with  the 
names  of  such  persons  as  they  may  see  fit  to  recommend  for  of- 
ffice,  just  as  if  he  had  made  no  public  pledge  that  this  practice 
should  be  discontinued.  I  give  him  credit  for  the  removal  of 
Mr.  Arthur  from  the  New  York  custom  house,  for  the  excellent 
reason  that  he  had  made  it "  a  center  of  partisan  political  man 
agement,"  and  that  it  was  necessary  "in  order  that  the  office 
may  be  honestly  administered."  These  reasons  were  rein 
forced  by  Secretary  Sherman,  who  said  to  the  collector  that 
"  gross  abuses  of  administration  have  continued  and  increased 
during  your  incumbency  ;  "  that  "  persons  have  been  regu- 
larlv  paid  by  you  who  have  rendered  little  or  no  service  ;  " 
that  "the  expenses  of  your  office  have  increased  while  its 
receipts  have  diminished,"  and  that  "  bribes,  or  gratuities  in 
the  shape  of  bribes,  have  been  received  by  your  subordinates 
in  several  branches  of  the  custom  house,  and  you  have  in  no 
case  supported  the  effort  to  correct  these  abuses." 

But  notwithstanding  these  grave  charges  the  removal  of 


192  »        SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

Mr.  Arthur  was  only  made  after  great  and  inexcusable  delay, 
and  was  then  accompanied  by  the  offer  to  him  of  the  Paris 
consulate,  being  an  evident  maneuver  of  the  President  to 
keep  on  both  sides  of  the  civil  service  question.  I  must  also 
give  the  President  due  credit  for  removing  Mr.  Cornell  from 
the  office  of  surveyor,  on  account  of  his  defiance  of  the  civil 
service  order.  He  did  this  in  the  face  of  Senator  Conkling's 
denunciation  of  the  administration,  and  his  insolent  remark 
that  ''reform  is  the  last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel."  But  when 
Mr.  Cornell,  at  Conkling's  dictation,  was  nominated  for  Gov 
ernor  of  New  York  last  year,  and  was  known  to  be  in  alli 
ance  with  the  Tammany  wing  of  the  Democratic  party,  Mr. 
Sherman  entered  the  canvass  and  earnestly  advocated  his 
election  ;  so  did  Secretary  Evarts,  while  the  President  him 
self  caused  a  statement  to  be  made  in  the  newspapers  that  if 
he  were  in  New  York  he  would  cordially  give  Mr.  Cornell 
his  support.  During  this  canvass  Mr.  Sherman  wrote  to  Ap 
praiser  Dutcher :  "  I  cordially  approve  of  your  taking  part 
in  the  Cornell  and  Hoskins  campaign,  and  will  do  all  in  my 
power  to  favor  their  election.  I  have  no  objection  to  the 
government  employes  making  contributions  to  the  fund." 
So  pitiful  a  game  of  fast  and  loose  is  more  detestable  than 
the  absence  of  any  pretense  of  principle  or  consistency,  and 
forcibly  illustrates  the  omnipotent  moral  feebleness  of  this 
administration.  Every  feature  of  the  civil  service  order  of 
three  years  ago  ;  every  phase  and  similitude  of  the  reform  is 
openly  disregarded,  and  everywhere  treated  with  contempt. 
So  completely,  in  fact,  has  the  civil  service  become  the  mere 
foot-ball  of  scheming  party  managers,  and  fashioned  itself 
into  the  old  warp  and  woof  of  Grantism,  that  in  the  late  Chi 
cago  convention  the  Committee  on  Resolutions,  halting  be 
fore  the  accusing  party  record,  repeatedly  voted  down  the 
proposition  to  allude  in  any  way  to  the  subject.  When  the 
convention  afterward  was  compelled  to  deal  with  it  on  its  in 
troduction  by  a  Massachusetts  delegate,  the  resolution  offered, 
according  to  George  William  Curtis,  "was  paired  into  the 
utmost  possible  harmlessness,"  and  then  practically  blotted 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  193 

out  by  the  nomination  of  a  man  for  the  second  place  on  the 
ticket  whose  management  of  the  New  York  custom  house 
had  been  the  beau  ideal  of  the  spoils  system,  and  an  insult  to 
the  administration  which  afterward  crouched  at  his  feet  in 
atonement  for  the  only  decided  spasm  of  virtue  which  had 
exercised  its  conscience.  If  anything  was  wanting  to  round 
out  and  beautify  these  closing  acts  of  the  convention,  it  was 
the  keen  irony  embodied  in  the  hungry  and  wolfish  inquiry 
of  the  patriot  Flannegan,  of  Texas  :  "What  are  we  here 
for  if  not  for  office  and  patronage?"  And  if  any  political 
fact  could  be  made  absolutely  certain,  it  is,  that  civil  service 
reform,  after  a  life  of  great  travail  and  sorrow,  was  at  last  in 
its  grave  ;  while  you  ajl  know  that  General  Garfield  himself, 
in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  has  preached  its  funeral  and  writ 
ten  its  epitaph. 

This,  gentlemen,  is  the  record  of  the  Republican  party 
since  the  close  of  the  war  and  the  settlement  of  the  questions 
it  involved.  This  is  the  sum  total  of  its  promised  achieve 
ments  in  the  work  of  "reform  within  the  party;"  and  it 
shows  how  entirely  safe  Secretary  Schurz  is  in  predicting 
that  the  millenium  will  not  follow  the  election  of  the  Repub 
lican  ticket.  I  have  spread  out  before  you  its  reiterated  pro- 
fessio^ns  and  promises,  and  the  unfailing  violation  of  them 
which  has  followed  as  the  night  the  day  ;  and  I  ask  any  fair- 
minded  Republican  to  give  me  a  single  reason,  or  even  a 
respectable  pretext,  for  believing  that  the  long  delayed  work 
will  be  accomplished.  It  violated  its  pledges  made  in  1868. 
It  proved  equally  false  to  those  made  in  1872.  It  has  defi 
antly  mocked  its  plighted  promises  in  1876,  which  still  kept 
alive  the  hope  of  many  Republicans  ;  and  now,  as  the  climax 
of  its  unrebuked  recreancy,  it  even  musters  the  courage  to 
disavow  the  stock  professions  which  have  so  long  masked  its 
real  character.  If  any  honest  man  is  still  inclined  to  trust  it, 
I  point  him  to  these  danger  signals  all  along  its  pathway, 
beckoning  him  to  beware.  By  its  fruits  it  must  be  judged, 
and  if  so  it  will  be  nailed  to  the  pillory  by  an  overwhelming 
popular  verdict.  The  Republican  leaders  understand  this 
13 


194  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

perfectly ;  and  hence,  at  the  very  threshold  of  this  canvass 
we  find  them  resorting  to  the  old  game  which  they  played  so 
skillfully  in  1872  and  1876.  They  are  asking  us  to  excuse  or 
condone  their  multiplied  acts  of  misgovernment  for  the  last 
twelve  years,  oh  the  score  of  what  the  party  did  during  the 
war ;  and  they  insist,  with  their  old-time  vehemence,  upon 
the  total  depravity  of  the  Democratic  party  and  the  exhaust- 
less  saving  grace  of  their  own.  The  key-note  of  the  can 
vass  was  struck  by  the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor 
in  his  opening  speech  at  Indianapolis.  He  gave  us  to  under 
stand  that  should  General  Hancock  be  elected,  Utah,  with 
her  polygamy,  would  be  admitted  as  a  state,  and  thus  give 
the  party  two  senators  ;  that  the  Indian  territory  would  be 
carved  into  another  state,  with  two  more  senators  ;  that  Texas 
would  be  divided  into  five  states,  and  thus  give  the  party 
eight  additional  senators  ;  that  the  judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  would  be  duplicated,  and  three- 
fourths  of  them  selected  from  the  South  ;  that  then  the  re 
construction  acts  and  constitutional  amendments  would  all 
be  pronounced  unconstitutional  and  void  ;  and  finally,  that 
we  should  be  saddled  with  the  rebel  debt  and  rebel  pensions, 
and  be  compelled  to  pay  the  value  of  the  slaves  unconstitu 
tionally  set  free,  who,  of  course,  would  all  be  put  back  into 
slavery. 

This  brilliant  unfurling  of  the  "bloody  shirt"  at  the  open 
ing  of  the  canvass,  by  a  gentleman  of  Mr.  Porter's  coolness 
and  proverbial  moderation,  seems  a  little  remarkable,  and 
suggests  the  suspicion  that  his  picture  of  Democratic  diabol 
ism  may  have  been  painted  with  a  pencil  bequeathed  by  the 
late  Senator  Morton.  Mr.  Porter  says  this  is  "no  fancy 
sketch,  no  picture  of  the  imagination,  but  a  sober  danger, 
which  may,  before  we  know  it,  become  an  appalling  one." 
If  he  really  believes  this,  his  friends  should  provide  him  with 
a  guardian  or  a  responsible  committee  to  take  charge  of  his 
person  and  estate,  instead  of  trying  to  make  him  Governor. 
If  he  does  not  believe  it,  but  is  simply  seeking  a  party  advan 
tage  by  a  base  appeal  to  popular  ignorance,  he  is  a  dema- 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o. 


'95 


gogue  of  very  considerable  promise,  and  should  be  rebuked  by 
the  people  according  to  his  deserts*  But  this  is  the  Repub 
lican  argument,  and  Mr.  Porter  is  o'nly  one  of  the  many  lead 
ers  who  are  giving  it  voice.  When  Secretary  Sherman  was 
in  Maine  he  told  his  audiences  that  "  questions  of  money, 
labor,  and  property  sank  into  insignificance"  in  the  presence 
of  the  great  sectional  issue.  Senator  Hoar,  as  we  have  seen, 
treats  the  Democratic  party  to-day,  united  under  a  famous 
Union  General,  as  imbued  with  the  same  treasonable  purpose 
and  spirit  which  animated  the  revolt  against  the  government 
in  1861.  Even  Senator  Edmunds,  of  Vermont,  lends  him 
self  to  the  same  madness.  These  ideas  will  shape  and  in 
spire  the  Republican  canvass  in  every  section  of  the  Union. 
The  Republican  leaders  are  the  everlasting  saviors  of  the 
country.  Since  the  rebellion  was  suppressed  it  has  been 
constantly  nearing  the  gates  of  death,  and  especially  at  every 
Presidential  election.  The  war  has  now  been  over  more 
than  fifteen  years,  and  yet  the  "Rebels"  have  so  fair  a  pros 
pect  of  capturing  the  government  that  the  effort  to  save  it 
must  not  be  balked  in  the  slightest  degree  by  any  inquiries 
into  the  management  of  public  affairs  since  the  close  of  the 
conflict.  One-half  the  people  of  the  United  States  are  so  in 
finitely  wicked  that  at  all  hazards  they  must  be  kept  out  of 
power.  This  is  the  Republican  issue.  This  view  of  the  sit 
uation,  it  is  true,  greatly  belittles  the  boasted  achievements 
of  the  party  in  saving  the  Union  and  garnering  the  fruits  of 
the  victory.  It  also  excites  a  doubt  as  to  whether  a  nation 
thus  fearfully  beset  with  deadly  perils  and  constantly  on  the 
ragged  edge  of  destruction,  is  worth  the  trouble  and  vexation 
of  preserving  it,  except  to  the  ravenous  crew  who  live  by 
plunder ;  but  these  considerations  probably  never  occur  to 
the  men  whose  days  and  nights  are  completely  absorbed  by 
their  efforts  to  save  their  country  from  the  dreadful  pitfalls  of 
its  enemies. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  no  motive  and  no  wish  to  withhold 
from  the  Republican  party  its  fairly-earned  honors  in  the 
work  of  suppressing  the  rebellion.  I  was  with  it  and  of  it 


196  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

during  the  great  crisis  of  its  life,  and  am  perfectly  willing  to 
crown  it  with  all  the  glory  it  earned  ;  but  does  it  logically  follow 
that  because,  under  the  lead  of  Lincoln,  Seward,  Chase  and 
Sumner,  it  played  a  grand  part  in  crushing  out  a  rebellion 
which  began  nearly  twenty  years  ago,  that,  therefore,  the 
Republican  party  of  to-day  should  be  intrusted  with  the 
national  administration?  There  can  be  but  one  possible  an 
swer  to  this  question.  We  are  now  in  the  enjoyment  of 
peace,  and  interested  in  the  concerns  of  peace.  More  than 
the  half  of  an  entire  generation  has  passed  away  since  the 
close  of  the  struggle,  and  it  has  no  more  business  in  this  can 
vass  than  our  war  with  Mexico.  What  the  country  wants  to-day 
is  an  honest  and  capable  management  of  public  affairs  ;  and 
the  claim  of  the  contending  parties  upon  our  suffrages  should 
be  judged  solely  in  reference  to  this  consideration.  As  re 
gards  that  portion  of  the  Democratic  party  which  undertook 
the  work  of  national  dismemberment  in  1861  in  defense  of 
negro  slavery,  I  am  quite  as  ready  to  condemn  it  as  I  am  to 
applaud  the  conduct  of  the  men  who  confronted  it  at  the  time. 
Its  action  provoked  my  unmeasured  abhorrence,  and  my  em 
phatic  expression  of  it  has  never  been  withdrawn  ;  but  when 
the  Democratic  party  now  asks  me  to  consider  its  claim  to 
my  confidence,  am  I  to  brand  it  as  a  party  of  rebels  because 
a  fraction  of  it  embarked  in  a  treasonable  conspiracy  nearly 
a  generation  ago?  As  reasonable  men,  loving  our  country 
and  seeking  its  welfare  with  unbiased  minds,  it  is  our  duty  to 
consider  what  is  best  in  the  light  of  existing  and  irreversible 
facts,  and,  above  all  things,  not  to  make  shipwreck  of  our 
common  sense  at  the  bidding  of  party  leaders. 

For  myself,  instead  of  seeking  pretexts  for  prolonging  the 
old  quarrel  between  sections,  I  am  anxious,  above  all  things, 
to  avoid  them.  Instead  oflying  in  wait  for  some  unguarded 
expression  or  rash  utterance,  or  studiously  provoking  it,  I  am 
ready  to  welcome  with  gladness  and  thanksgiving  every  to 
ken  of  reconciliation.  I  plead  for  this  spirit,  because  just  so 
longfas  parties  are  marshalled  against  each  other  on  the  bale 
ful  memories  of  the  war,  the  issue  of  sectionalism  will  be  the 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  Ip7 

stalking-horse  of  every  form  of  political  abuse,  and  no  remedy 
for  our  political  disorders  will  be  possible*  The  first  and  in 
dispensable  step  in  the  pathway  of  reform  is  the  rearrange 
ment  of  parties  on  questions  wholly  disconnected  with  the 
settled  issues  of  the  past.  The  "Solid  North"  and  "Solid 
South,"  for  which  reckless  demagogues  are  now*  laboring, 
would  be  a  national  calamity.  Both  should  be  divided  ;  and 
questions  of  practical  administration  are  not  wanting  on  which 
such  divisions  are  invited,  involving,  of  necessity,  the  division 
of  the  colored  vote,  and  thus  clearing  the  way  for  the  end  of 
sectional  agitation  by  diverting  attention  from  its  cause.  I 
quarrel  with  the  Republican  party  to-day  because  its  ma 
chinery  is  kept  in  working  order  by  unholy  appeals  to  pas 
sions  and  animosities  that  need  nothing  so  much  as  forgetful- 
ness.  It  lives  upon  the  consuming  fires  of  sectional  hate,  and 
makes  crimination  and  recrimination  respecting  dead  issues 
the  fuel  of  our  politics.  If  anything  could  drive  the  people  of 
the  South  into  the  madness  of  treason  it  would  be  the  policy 
of  the  Republican  leaders  in  perpetually  branding  them  with 
it,  and  arraigning  them  in  the  language  and  spirit  of  1861. 
How  can  a  quarrel  ever  come  to  an  end  if  the  parties  to  it, 
after  a  formal  settlement,  make  it  their  constant  business  to 
taunt  each  other  with  their  mutual  accusations  ?  If  the  ashes 
of  the  past  are  to  be  constantly  stirred,  and  our  parties  rallied 
on  the  memories  of  the  war  to-day,  who  can  predict  the  time 
when  a  real  union  of  the  sections  will  be  possible?  If  the 
North  and  the  South  are  to  be  dealt  with  as  two  hostile  camps, 
who  can  expect  emigration  to  flow  into  the  states  which  else 
would  invite  it,  and  thus  work  out  their  redemption  through 
an  intelligent  and  homogeneous  population? 

Gentlemen,  let  me  deal  fairly  with  this  question.  It  un 
doubtedly  has  its  difficulties.  Its  just  settlement  demands 
statesmanship,  not  passion.  The  people  of  the  South  are  the 
product  of  their  political  and  social  antecedents.  They  have 
behind  them  a  history  radically  different  from  that  of  the 
people  of  the  North,  and  the  impress  of  that  history  can  only 
be  effaced  by  cultivated  patience  and  good-will  in  both  sec- 


198  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

tions.  In  dealing  with  so  vital  and  delicate  a  problem  we 
are  obliged  to  accept  the  inevitable  conditions  of  progress, 
and  have  no  right  to  upbraid  whole  communities  with  the 
great  facts  which  have  made  them  what  they  are.  Without 
the  intervention  of  a  miracle  the  unlikeness  of  the  two  sec 
tions  can  only  disappear  gradually,  and  under  friendly  con 
ditions.  It  could  scarcely  be  expected  that  the  people  of  the 
South  can  all  now  feel  precisely  the  same  attachment  for  the 
Union  they  fought  to  destroy  which  is  felt  by  the  people  who 
fought  to  save  it.  They  can  not  help  remembering  their  suf 
ferings  and  sacrifices  in  the  struggle  and  hallowing  the  mem 
ory  of  their  slain.  They  are  a  different  people,  with  a  differ 
ent  historic  record,  and  imbued  with  correspondingly  different 
ideas  ;  and  these  differences  should  be  dealt  with  in  a  friendly 
and  tolerant  spirit,  instead  of  being  eagerly  laid  hold  of  as 
the  occasion  for  strife.  Our  Republican  leaders  endeavor  to 
awaken  sectional  animosity  by  their  inventory  of  the  "  Con 
federate  Brigadiers  "  in  Congress  who  are  now  sharing  in 
the  government  they  fought  to  destroy.  But  these  dangerous 
characters  are  there  by  the  express  legislative  permission  of 
the  Republican  party,  which  made  haste  to  remove  their  dis 
abilities  and  hurried  the  seceded  states  back  into  their  con 
stitutional  relations  to  the  Union.  They  were  thus  armed 
with  the  power  to  manage  their  own  affairs  without  being 
called  to  account  by  the  states  of  the  North  ;  and  nobody  had 
any  right  to  expect  that  in  choosing  men  to  serve  them  in 
Congress  they  would  select  perfect  representatives  of  North 
ern  opinion.  Nobody  had  any  right  to  suppose  that  the  es 
sential  facts  of  the  situation  could  be  changed  except  by  the 
healing  hand  of  time  and  the  duty  of  men  on  both  sides  to 
smooth  the  way  as  fast  as  possible  to  a  general  and  genuine 
reconciliation.  It  has  been  well  said  by  a  very  able  English 
writer  on  political  and  social  questions  that  "generations 
change.  The  son  is  not  like  his  father  ;  the  grandson  is  still 
less  like  his  grandfather.  They  do  not  feel  the  same  feel 
ings,  or  think  the  same  thoughts,  or  lead  the  same  life.  You 
can  no  more  expect  different  generations  to  have  exactly  the 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  199 

same  political  opinions,  to  obey  exactly  the  same  laws,  to  love 
exactly  the  same  institutions,  than  you  can  expect  them  to 
wear  identical  clothes,  own  identical  furniture,  or  have  iden 
tical  manners.''  The  states  of  the  South  may  safely  be  left 
to  the  operation  of  these  obvious  principles,  while  every  pa 
triotic  man  of  the  North  should  gladly  accept  them  as  the 
prophecy  and  pledge  of  a  reunited  republic.  These  states 
must  be  redeemed,  if  redeemed  at  all,  through  the  working 
of  moral  and  social  forces.  It  must  be  done  through  the  or 
dinary  agencies  of  civilization,  and  not  by  the  methods  of 
barbarism,  and  in  the  very  nature  of  things  it  can  not  be  done 
in  a  day.  If  I  am  mistaken,  and  we  are  to  accept  the  Re 
publican  view  of  the  people  as  thoroughly  given  over  to  the 
work  of  treason  and  the  re-enslavement  of  their  colored  pop 
ulation,  then  the  Union  is  virtually  dismembered  already,  and 
the  Republican  party  confesses  the  utter  failure  of  its  scheme 
of  reconstruction.  The  government,  by  constitutional  meth 
ods,  of  a  great  and  united  section  of  the  republic  which  defies 
the  national  authority,  is  impossible,  and  the  folly  of  attempt 
ing  it  should  be  abandoned  at  once.  These  "  rebel  districts" 
not  only  need  "  troops  at  the  polls,"  but  troops  everywhere, 
and  should  be  summarily  turned  over  as  outlying  provinces 
to  the  tutelage  of  a  standing  army. 

Now,  gentlemen,  if  I  am  right  in  these  views,  as  I  feel 
quite  sure  I  am — if  the  facts  which  make  up  my  premises  are 
impregnable  and  my  deductions  valid — the  chief  task  upon 
which  I  set  out  is  accomplished.  The  best  and  only  possible 
way  to  inaugurate  political  reform  is  to  drive  the  Republican 
party  from  power,  and  place  the  government  in  new  hands. 
By  no  other  means  can  the  era  of  sectional  estrangement 
be  closed  and  the  orderly  and  healthy  administration  of  af 
fairs  be  re-established.  This  conclusion  is  not  at  all  affected 
by  the  conduct  of  the  Democratic  party  years  ago,  in  its  re 
lations  to  slavery  and  the  war,  nor  by  its  record  since.  It 
has  not  been  charged  with  the  administration  of  national  af 
fairs  for  many  vears,  with  the  slight  exception  of  its  recent 
ascendency  in  Congress,  during  which  the  power  of  the  lobby 


2OO  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

has  been  broken,  the  political  and  social  atmosphere  of 
Washington  greatly  improved,  and  the  annual  expenditures 
of  the  government  greatly  reduced.  But  I  do  not  rest  the 
case  upon  these  facts.  The  Democratic  party  is  not  innocent 
of  very  grave  political  mistakes  and  offenses.  This  has  been 
especially  true  in  particular  states  and  districts  during  the 
dispensation  of  plunder  and  misgovernment  which  marked 
the  two  administrations  of  General  Grant.  During  the  years 
of  sectional  bitterness  unavoidably  resulting  from  the  war, 
and  needlessly  aggravated  by  demagogues,  the  Democratic 
party  had  a  very  trying  experience,  and  often  sadly 
failed  in  meeting  the  obligations  of  patriotism  and  statesman 
ship.  I  am  not  here  to  defend  it  where  its  conduct  is  not  de 
fensible.  I  do  not  disguise  the  fact  that  should1  it  now  re 
gain  power  it  will  have  on  its  hands  a  work  of  exceeding 
difficulty.  I  do  not  believe  in  the  power  of  any  party  to  work 
miracles,  but  it  is  the  only  instrument  through  which  the 
government  can  now  be  rescued  from  the  depraved  dynasty 
which  controls  it,  and  which,  as  I  have  shown,  has  com 
pletely  lost  the  power  of  self-recovery.  We  can  not  afford 
to  postpone  the  work  of  saving  the  country  till  a  perfect  party 
shall  offer  to  undertake  it ;  and  it  is  always  wiser  to  run  the 
hazard  of  possible  or  even  probable  evils  than  voluntarily  to 
accept  those  which  are  certain.  Twenty  years  of  power  would 
demoralize  a  party  of  angels.  It  would  convert  them  into  a 
governing  class,  with  interests  wholly  apart  from  those  of  the 
people,  and  the  complete  overhauling  of  their  misdeeds  would 
only  be  possible  through  a  new  party,  stimulated  in  its  work 
by  a  political  victory,  and  having  complete  control  of  their 
records. 

In  following  out  the  line  of  argument  in  my  opening 
statements,  let  me  now  briefly  refer  to  the  personal  charac 
ter  of  the  candidates.  Of  General  Hancock  I  need  say  but 
little.  It  is  the  singular  good  fortune  of  his  country  and  of 
himself  that  he  does  not  need  to  be  defended.  In  private 
life  he  is  above  reproach.  His  honor  is  unsullied.  There  is 
no  stain  of  bribery  or  official  greed  upon  his  garments.  His 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  2OI 

loyalty  to  the  Union  has  been  tried  by  fire,  and  demonstrated 
by  acts  which  will  make  his  name  as  imperishable  as  the  his 
tory  of  his  country.  His  subordination  of  the  military  to  the 
civil  power,  while  holding  an  important  command,  is  a  guar 
antee  that,  if  elected,  the  arbitrary  methods  which  have 
brought  shame  upon  the  government  under  Republican  rule 
will  cease,  and  that  statesmanship,  and  not  mere  brute-force, 
will  guide  the  conduct  of  public  affairs  ;  while  there  is  no 
reason  whatever  for  believing  that  he  will  imitate  the  con 
duct  of  General  Grant  by  surrounding  himself  with  political 
bummers  and  knaves.  He  is  a  clean  man,  and  if  political 
reform  should  not  be  thoroughly  accomplished  under  his  ad 
ministration  it  will  at  least  be  made  possible  by  breaking  up 
the  organized  machinery  which  now  stands  in  its  way,  and 
assuaging  the  bitterness  of  sectional  strife. 

As  regards  the  Republican  candidate,  I  know  him  pretty 
well,  having  served  with  him  in  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  eight  years.  Our  personal  as  well  as  political  relations 
were  at  all  times  friendly,  and  I  have  no  disposition  what 
ever  to  do  him  any  injustice.  He  is  a  man  of  brains,  and  less 
inclined  to  party  narrowness  and  intolerance,  and  more  cath 
olic  in  his  tendencies  than  the  other  conspicuous  Republican 
leaders.  The  natural  bent  of  his  character  is  toward  in 
tegrity,  and  he  is  not  without  excellent  personal  qualities  ; 
but  in  his  long  career  he  has  never  shown  himself  able  to  rise 
above  his  party.  In  times  of  real  trial  he  is  wanting  in  moral 
nerve.  During  the  dismal  political  eclipse  which  I  have 
called  Grantism,  he  gave  no  sign  of  revolt  or  discontent,  but 
meekly  held  his  peace.  He  is  known  to  be  in  sympathy  with 
our  great  railway  corporations,  and  fully  with  his  party  in  its 
strong  leaning  toward  centralization.  I  understand  him  to 
be  a  free  trader  in  his  convictions  and  a  member  of  the  Cob- 
den  Club  ;  but  I  believe  he  has  always  accommodated  him 
self  to  the  wishes  of  the  tariff  monopolists  of  the  country,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  will  be  equally  subservient  in  future.  Nearly 
two  years  ago,  when  sectionalism  seemed  to  be  on  the  wane, 
he  declared  that  "  the  man  who  attempts  to  get  up  a  political 


2O2  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

excitement  in  this  country  on  the  old  sectional  issues  will  find 
himself  without  a  party  and  without  support ;  "  but  this  was  a 
sporadic  utterance  in  the  face  of  his  uniform  course  since  the 
war  as  a  stalwart,  in  vigorously  flourishing  the  bloody  shirt. 
At  the  bidding  of  his  party  he  has  been  faithless  to  his  own 
expressed  views  on  the  use  of  the  army  at  elections  and  the 
employment  of  deputy  marshals.  In  his  letter  of  acceptance 
he  makes  a  very  feeble  effort  to  place  himself  on  the  side  ot 
civil  service  reform,  while  in  substance  he  condemns  the  or 
der  of  President  Hayes  to  his  subordinates,  vindicates  con 
gressional  interference  with  appointments  and  thus  begins 
the  battle  for  reform  by  a  surrender.  His  role  in  the  Chicago 
convention  as  a  peace-maker  aptly  illustrates  his  natural  dis 
position,  and  his  unfitness  for  any  independent,  aggressive 
movement.  If  his  intellect  were  inspired  by  profound  moral 
convictions  and  a  strong  will,  his  friends  might  plausibly 
claim  that  he  could  lift  his  party  to  a  higher  level  ;  but  he  is 
merely  its  expression  and  breath.  His  nomination  was  an 
accident,  and  has  no  moral  significance  whatever.  He  would 
have  supported  General  Grant  if  he  had  been  nominated,  not 
withstanding  his  record  of  eight  years  and  the  mischiefs 
threatened  by  the  precedent  of  a  third  term,  just  as  he  stood 
ready  to  work  and  shout  for  Blaine,  with  his  stock-jobbing 
performances.  Probably  four-fifths  of  the  national  conven 
tion  favored  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  candidates,  whose 
overthrow  was  accomplished  by  outside  influences  which  the 
convention  was  unwilling  to  defy.  General  Garfield  profited 
by  the  embittered  rivalries  of  the  other  candidates,  and  all 
that  can  be  claimed  in  his  behalf  is  that  he  represents  the 
average  political  morality  of  the  party  whose  record  I  have 
attempted  to  depict,  and  whose  national  convention,  with 
only  two  dissenting  voices,  pledged  itself  before  the  nomina 
tion  to  support  any  man  who  might  be  selected. 

But  the  character  of  General  Garfield  is  involved  in  cer 
tain  particular  charges,  to  which  I  propose  to  refer.  Among 
these  I  shall  briefly  allude  to  the  retroactive  salary  act,  the 
De  Golyer  pavement  swindle,  and  the  Credit  Mobilier  devel- 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  2O3 

opments.  In  dealing  with  these  it  may  be  well  to  remember 
that  every  one  of  them  has  a  Republican  pedigree,  and  there 
fore,  when  complaint  is  made  about  throwing  "campaign 
mud,"  I  refer  the  account  for  settlement  to  the  Republican 
leaders  and  journalists  who  made  these  charges  years  ago, 
and  are  now  so  ready  to  brand  them  as  Democratic  lies. 
They  dumped  this  "  mud  "  on  the  door-steps  of  their  candi 
date,  and  it  is  their  business  to  cart  it  away  if  they  can.  Let 
me  say  further,  that  I  wish  to  deal  only  in  facts.  I  shall  in 
dulge  in  no  denunciation,  no  personal  abuse,  and  no  extrav 
agant  assertions  as  to  General  Garfield's  criminality.  If  his 
early  accusers  and  present  champions  had  shown  more  can 
dor  and  less  partisan  bias  in  dealing  with  his  conduct,  I 
should  have  felt  less  disposition  to  arraign  it.  If,  instead  of 
attempting  to  prove  his  character  stainless,  they  had  been 
willing,  like  the  Springfield  Re-publican,  to  admit  his  weak 
ness,  and  refer  his  conduct  to  the  corrupt  atmosphere  of  the 
period  in  which  he  yielded  to  temptation,  and  the  charitable 
judgment  of  the  public,  there  would  have  been  less  motive 
and  less  inclination  to  overhaul  the  facts  and  sift  the  evidence. 
The  people  have  a  right  to  know  the  truth  respecting  the 
character  of  a  candidate  for  the  highest  office  within  their 
gift,  and  if  it  can  not  pass  their  scrutiny  unscathed,  no 
amount  of  whitewash  should  be  allowed  to  conceal  the  fact. 

The  material  facts  connected  with  the  retroactive  salary 
bill  may  be  very  briefly  stated.  On  the  last  day  of  the  forty- 
second  Congress,  this  measure  appropriated  nearly  two  mil 
lion  dollars  to  pay  the  members  of  that  Congress  for  salaries 
they  had  never  earned.  It  was  regarded  by  the  people  as  a 
naked  legislative  theft.  General  Garfield  was  chairman  of 
the  Committee  of  Conference  having  charge  of  the  appropri 
ation  bill  containing  the  retroactive  provision,  and  as  such, 
engineered  its  passage  and  voted  for  it.  It  is  true,  that  he 
had  previously  and  repeatedly  voted  against  the  salary  in 
crease  as  a  separate  proposition,  but  this  does  not  relieve  him 
of  the  responsibility  of  finally  voting  for  and  urging  its  pas- 


204  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

sage.  It  is  also  true  that  he  attempted  to  justify  his  action 
on  the  plea  that  if  the  appropriation  bill  failed,  an  extra  ses 
sion  of  Congress  would  be  necessary.  But  this  was  a  pre 
tense,  and  not  a  justification.  If  the  measure  had  failed 
through  his  opposition,  there  was  time  enough  for  another 
Committee  of  Conference,  and  a  further  effort  to  save  the 
treasury.  If,  however,  he  clearly  saw,  or  could  have  seen, 
that  an  extra  session  of  Congress  would  be  the  result,  it  did 
not  justify  him  in  so  flagrant  a  game  of  robbery.  He  should 
have  washed  his  hands  of  it,  and  scouted  the  Jesuitical  prin 
ciple  which  invited  him  to  pick  the  nation's  pocket  to  avoid 
a  greater  evil.  That  General  Garfield  was  really  in  sympa 
thy  with  the  measure  is  shown  by  his  false  pretense  that  it 
was  not  a  robbery  or  a  theft  at  all,  but  justified  by  legisla 
tive  precedents,  and  by  the  fact  that  he  allowed  the  salary 
to  stand  to  his  credit,  and  of  course  meant  to  retain  it.  Six 
or  seven  weeks  afterwards,  it  is  true,  he  covered  it  into  the 
treasury,  and  thereby  confessed  his  guilt.  But  this  was  in 
the  midst  of  a  popular  indignation  which  had  spread  like  fire 
throughout  the  Union,  and  a  few  days  after  a  Republican  con 
vention  at  Warren,  in  Trurnbull  county,  in  his  congressional 
district,  had  censured  him  for  his  action  respecting  this  meas 
ure,  and  requested  him  to  resign.  He  only  dropped  his  swag 
when  he  found  the  police  were  on  his  tracks.  These  are  the 
simple  facts  bearing  upon  his  connection  with  this  transac 
tion,  and  the  people  will  decide  whether  they  do  not  signally 
fail  to  relieve  him  of  his  conspicuous  responsibility  fur  this 
memorable  legislative  outrage. 

The  De  Golyer  pavement  matter  is  connected  with  the 
scheme  of  street  improvements  in  Washington,  inaugurated 
by  the  board  of  public  works  in  1872.  In  response  to  bids 
which  were  invited  by  the  board,  De  Golyer  &  Co.  applied 
for  a  large  contract  for  laying  their  patent  wooden  pavement, 
which  was  rejected  by  the  board  of  engineers.  They  there 
upon  determined  to  raise  a  large  fund  through  which  to  in 
fluence  the  action  of  the  board  in  their  favor,  and  the  evidence 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  205 

taken  before  two  congressional  investigatingcommitteesshows 
that  sundry  influential  parties  in  Washington  were  enlisted 
in  the  work,  including  R.  C.  Parsons,  then  Marshal  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  who  was  to  receive  a  large  fee  for  his  ser 
vices,  contingent  upon  an  appropriation  by  Congress.  Out 
of  this  fee  Mr.  Parsons  agreed  to  pay  General  Garfield  $5,000 
for  professional  services  before  the  board,  in  behalf  of  the  appli 
cation  of  De  Golyer  &  Co.,  for  a  contract.  If  General  Garfield 
was  at  that  time  known  to  the  public  as  a  lawyer,  it  is  quite  cer 
tain  that  he  had  won  no  celebrity.  The  question  to  be  decided 
involved  the  character  and  comparative  value  of  many  pat 
ents,  both  wooden  and  concrete,  and  could  scarcely  be  con 
sidered  a  judicial  one  at  all.  There  was  no  case  in  court, 
because  nobody  had  been  sued.  It  was  a  matter  for  experts 
and  not  for  lawyers,  and  it  was  not  to  be  tried  by  a  judicial 
tribunal.  General  Garfield  never  appeared  before  the  board, 
and  never  filed  any  written  argument.  If  he  prepared  one, 
as  he  declares  he  did,  it  strangely  failed  to  find  its  way  to  the 
tribunal  it  was  intended  to  influence.  He  once  spoke  to 
Governor  Shepard  on  the  subject  in  behalf  of  his  clients,  and 
received  $5,000  for  serving  them.  I  think  he  must  have 
known  that  his  opinion  of  wooden  pavements  was  not  worth 
this  sum.  That  he  received  it  for  his  factitious  influence  as 
a  member  of  Congress  and  chairman  of  the  committee  on 
appropriations,  is  as  perfectly  manifest  as  any  fact  can  be, 
short  of  a  mathematical  demonstration.  If,  as  he  declares,  he 
did  not  himself  know  it,  nor  suspect  it,  it  is  a  psychological 
phenomenon  which  may  well  awaken  doubt  as  to  that  mental 
soundness  which  is  the  special  boast  of  his  friends.  General 
Garfield  and  his  champions  are  endeavoring  to  whiten  his 
record  by  asserting  that  the  money  to  pay  for  these  street 
improvements  did  not  come  from  the  national  treasury,  but 
from  the  resources  of  the  District,  and  had  already  been  pro 
vided  by  the  District  government,  so  that  the  only  question 
involved  was  the  kind  of  pavement  which  should  be  used.  If 
this  were  true,  his  official  position  would  have  been  less  in 
fluential  in  his  employment,  and  he  would  be  at  least  partially 


2O6  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

exonerated.  But  the  truth  is  that  behind  the  District  gov 
ernment  and  its  revenues  stood  Congress,  the  ultimate  re 
sponsible  authority  for  appropriations,  and  that  large  appro 
priations  for  the  De  Golyer  pavements  were  afterwards  re 
ported  by  General  Garfield's  committee,  and  passed.  That 
his  official  position  and  influence  constituted  the  motive  of 
his  employment  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  after  he  had  been 
secured,  his  employers  made  their  boast  that  they  had  now 
the  influence  of  the  man  who  held  "  the  purse-strings  of  the 
United  States,"  and  was  "  the  strongest  man  in  Congress  ;  " 
and  on  this  ground  it  has  since  been  judicially  determined 
that  the  contract  procured  by  such  methods  was  against 
public  policy  and  void.  I  commend  these  pregnant  consid 
erations  to  General  Garfield's  over-zealous  friends,  whose  ef 
forts  in  wrestling  with  unmanageable  facts  promise  to  be 
come  an  interesting  campaign  study. 

Respecting  General  Garfield's  transactions  with  Oakes 
Ames,  his  champions  make  the  same  extravagant  claim  of 
complete  vindication  as  in  the  charges  I  have  noticed.  They 
decline  to  make  any  excuses  on  the  score  of  weakness  or 
ignorance,  but  attempt  to  defend  him  absolutely.  Oakes 
Ames  testified  before  the  Poland  committee  that  he  agreed 
to  take  ten  shares  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  stock,  and  that  he 
(Ames)  paid  him  a  dividend  of  $329.  The  committee,  a 
majority  of  which  was  composed  of  Republicans,  unani 
mously  found  these  facts  to  be  true.  Undoubtedly  they  be 
lieved  him,  as  the  public  did  with  scarcely  a  dissenting  voice. 
But,  although  several  excellent  reputations  were  destroyed 
or  badly  damaged  by  the  evidence  of  Ames  before  the  com 
mittee,  yet  now,  under  the  impelling  pressure  of  a  Presiden 
tial  election,  and  when  he  has  been  seven  years  in  his  grave, 
it  is  insisted  that  his  statements  respecting  General  Garfield 
are  wholly  untrustworthy.  The  report  of  this  committee  is 
assailed  by  leading  newspapers,  which  strongly  condemned 
its  culpable  moderation  at  the  time  of  its  publication  in  not 
including  sundry  other  members  of  Congress  (General  Gar- 
field  among  them)  in  the  same  condemnation  it  pronounced 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  2O7 

upon  Ames  and  Brooks.  Among  these  newspapers  was 
Harper's  Weekly.  Indeed,  it  was  then  very  generally  re 
garded  by  the  public  as  a  whitewashing  report,  and  this  view 
had  strong  confirmation  in  the  fact  that  the  members  of  the 
committee  were  General  Garfield's '  daily  associates,  and  a 
majority  of  them  his  personal  and  political  friends,  who 
would  spare  him  as  far  as  possible.  And  yet  Harper's 
Weekly  now  says:  "The  authors  of  the  report  may  have 
thought  it  necessary  to  show  their  impartiality  by  sacrificing 
some  of  their  own  party  friends."  This  suggestion  is  as  stu 
pid  as  it  is  dishonorable  to  the  members  of  that  committee, 
and  shows  to  what  desperate  straits  an  uncommonly  decent 
newspaper  may  be  driven  by  the  exigencies  of  a  political 
campaign.  This  journal  also  says  :  "  The  whole  case,  as  far 
as  Mr.  Garfield  is  concerned,  is  a  question  of  veracity  be 
tween  him  and  Oakes  Ames,"  and  it  has  no  hesitation  in 
completely  discrediting  the  evidence  of  the  latter,  although 
the  friendly  tone  of  his  statements  respecting  Mr.  Garfield 
clearly  indicate  the  disposition  to  spare  him,  and  although 
this  committee  had  unanimously  reached  an  opposite  conclu 
sion,  after  hearing  all  the  evidence,  weighing  the  character 
of  the  witnesses  who  came  before  them,  the  manner  in  which 
they  testified,  and  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case.  The 
Nation  falls  into  the  same  vein,  although  at  first  it  spoke  of 
the  conduct  of  General  Garfield  in  this  affair  as  having,  "  at 
the  time,  a  very  unfortunate  appearance,"  and  said,  "  he 
undoubtedly  bore  himself  badly  when  the  uproar  began,  and 
he  discovered  what  a  very  serious  view  the  public  took  of 
Ames'  dealings  with  congressmen."  It  now  strongly  accen 
tuates  the  bad  memory  of  Mr.  Ames,  indulges  in  several 
charitabje  suppositions  as  to  the  conduct  and  motives  of  Gen 
eral  Garfield,  and  tenderly  weighs  the  charges  against  him 
in  the  light  of  his  good  character,  about  which,  it  should 
remember,  that  opinions  are  very  greatly  divided. 

These  organs  likewise  overlook  certain  circumstantial 
statements  made  by  Mr.  Ames  before  the  committee,  on  the 
2Qth  of  January,  which,  in  fairness,  should  have  been  no- 


2O8  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

ticed  in  their  review  of  the  transaction.  He  then  testified  to 
the  effect  that  General  Garfield,  in  interviews  after  the  in 
vestigation  had  begun,  did  not  pretend  that  any  money  had 
been  loaned  him  ;  that  he  admitted  that  $2,400  were  due  him 
in  stock  and  bonds  ;  that  he  said  this  affair  would  be  very 
injurious  to  him,  and  was  a  cruel  thing  ;  that  he  was  in  very 
great  distress,  and  hardly  knew  what  he  did  say  ;  and  that 
he  said  he  wanted  to  say  as  little  about  the  affair  as  he  could, 
and  get  off  as  easily  as  possible.  These  statements  related 
to  recent  conversations,  and  can  not  be  got  rid  of  on  the  plea 
of  the  bad  memory  of  Mr.  Ames.  They  wear  the  appear 
ance  of  truth  ;  and  if  they  were  false,  they  deserved  a  point- 
blank  contradiction  by  Mr.  Garfield  on  his  oath  before  the 
committee.  But  he  never  made  that  contradiction.  He 
failed  to  confront  Mr.  Ames  as  a  witness  respecting  these 
statements,  and  subject  himself  to  the  wholesome  test  of  truth 
afforded  by  a  cross-examination,  but  contented  himself  with 
an  ex  -parte  printed  statement  of  his  defense  several  months 
later  and  after  Ames  had  died.  These  facts  do  not  favor  the 
theory  of  his  conscious  innocence.  I  will  not  brand  him  as 
guilty,  but  the  very  utmost  that  can  be  claimed  in  his  behalf 
is  that  his  wrong-doing  is  "  not  proven."  He  is  entitled  to 
the  benefit  of  all  reasonable  doubts,  and  to  a  fair  and  impar 
tial  hearing  on  the  appeal  now  taken  to  the  public  from  the 
finding  of  the  Poland  committee  ;  but  the  public  will  remem 
ber  that  this  appeal  is  asked  seven  years  alter  his  conviction, 
and  in  the  midst  of  a  national  canvass  in  which  the  fate  of 
his  party  is  involved  in  his  vindication,  and  it  will  not  fail  to 
weigh  the  evidence  accordingly.  I  freely  give  him  credit 
for  his  ingenious  and  elaborate  defense  of  himself  in  response 
to  the  popular  clamor  in  the  spring  of  1873,  but  the  truth  is, 
after  all,  that  he  stands  before  the  nation  under  the  shadow 
of  suspicion.  That  shadow  can  not  be  removed  by  calling 
Judge  Poland,  General  Banks  and  Judge  McCrary  as  wit 
nesses  to  impeach  their  own  record.  It  can  not  be  removed 
by  the  opinio'n  of  Senator  Thurman  that  his  guilt  is  not  dem 
onstrated  by  the  evidence.  It  can  not  be  removed  by  the 


THE    ISSUES    OF    l88o.  2Op 

friendly  letter  of  Judge  Black,  expressing  the  strong  assur 
ance  of  General  Garfield's  ignorance  of  the  criminal  purposes 
of  Oakes  Ames,  but  leaving  unnoticed  the  conflict  between 
his  sworn  statement  and  that  of  General  Garfield  respecting 
his  agreement  to  take  ten  shares  of  stock.  Nor  can  it  be  re- 

O 

moved  by  the  alleged  action  of  his  immediate  constituents  in 
condoning  his  errors.  They  have  not  condoned  them.  In 
1872  his  Congressional  majority  was  10,944;  but  in  1874  it 
was  reduced  to  2,526,  while  in  his  last  election,  when  the 
memory  of  this  transaction  had  considerably  faded  out  of 
the  public  mind,  his  majority  was  still  4,594  less  than  his  full 
party  strength. 

But  I  must  pass  now,  in  conclusion,  to  other  and  still 
graver  charges.  General  Garfield  was  one  of  the  "  visiting 
statesmen"  who  repaired  to  New  Orleans  soon  after  the  last 
Presidential  election,  in  response  to  the  invitation  of  Presi 
dent  Grant,  for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  securing  "a  fair 
count"  of  the  vote  of  Louisiana.  The  President  ordered  to 
the  state  an  imposing  military  force  to  preserve  the  peace, 
and  see  that  the  returning  board  of  the  state  was  unmolested 
in  the  performance  of  its  duty  ;  but  as  he  had  already  de 
stroyed  civil  government  there  by  the  bayonet  the  necessity 
for  this  military  order  was  not  apparent,  unless  some  new 
outrage  was  contemplated.  The  situation  was  critical,  and 
a  feeling  of  uncertainty  and  alarm  prevailed  throughout  the 
country.  The  chairman  of  the  Democratic  National  Com 
mittee  invited  several  representative  public  men,  of  both  po 
litical  parties,  to  visit  New  Orleans  in  the  interest  of  peace 
and  the  furtherance  of  the  faithful  performance  of  its  duty  by 
the  returning  board  ;  and  on  their  arrival  in  the  city  they  pro 
posed  to  Senator  Sherman,  General  Garfield,  and  their  Repub 
lican  associates,  a  joint  conference  and  friendly  co-operation 
with  a  view  to  a  just  and  satisfactory  settlement  of  the  threaten 
ing  controversy.  But  this  proposition  was  summarily  rejected, 
on  the  pretext  that  these  representative  Republicans  had  no 
legal  authority  to  interfere  with  the  vote  of  the  state,  or  the 
action  of  its  officers  in  canvassing  it.  To  this  it  was  replied 


2IO  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

that  no  such  authority  had  been  thought  of,  and  that  the  pro 
posed  conference  contemplated  only  such  moral  influence  as 
it  might  be  able  to  exert.  In  response  to  this,  the  Republi 
cans  disavowed  any  authority  or  wish  to  interfere  with  the 
returning  board,  even  to  that  extent,  and  thereby  left  the 
public  completely  in  the  fog  as  to  the  meaning  of  their  mis 
sion.  There  could,  however,  be  but  one  explanation,  since  a 
single  earnest  word  on  their  part  in  the  interest  of  fair  play 
would  almost  certainly  have  been  heeded,  while  their  per 
sonal  presence  and  refusal  to  act  showed  that  they  sympa 
thized  with  the  determination  of  the  board  to  count  the  state 
for  the  Republicans  at  all  events,  and  were  present  for  the 
purpose  of  abetting  that  object.  The  known  character  of 
the  board  confirms  this  view.  It  was  the  creature  and  instru 
ment  of  a  state  government  founded  in  flagrant  usurpation 
and  fraud.  Although  the  law  creating  it  required  that  its 
members  should  belong  to  different  parties,  they  were  all 
Republicans,  and  two  of  them  officers  in  the  custom  house  at 
New  Orleans.  The  law  also  required  the  board  to  be  com 
posed  of  rive  members,  but  there  were  only  four,  and  they 
utterly  refused  to  fill  the  vacancy.  The  entire  clerical  force 
of  the  board  was  also  composed  of  Republicans,  who  would, 
of  course,  be  the  ready  instruments  of  their  employers.  Its 
members  were  the  same  men  who  sat  upon  it  in  1874,  an<^ 
after  the  election  of  that  year  took  the  majority  of  votes  from 
one  side  and  gave  it  to  the  other,  by  "  unjust,  arbitrary  and 
illegal  acts,"  as  reported  by  a  Republican  congressional  com 
mittee.  The  president  of  the  board  had  branded  himself  as 
a  perjurer  in  the  testimony  he  had  given  respecting  the  state 
election  of  that  year,  and  had  disgraced  himself  by  his  polit 
ical  rascality  and  disregard  of  law  while  holding  his  guber 
natorial  office  in  1867.  The  other  members  of  the  board  were 
his  fit  associates,  and  it  had  been  characterized  by  Hon. 
William  A.  Wheeler  as  "  a  disgrace  to  civilization,"  and  was 
covered  with  universal  suspicion.  And  yet  General  Garfield 
and  his  Republican  confederates,  in  reiecting  the  proposition 
for  a  joint  conference,  declared  that  they  had  no  reason  to 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  211 

doubt  that  a  perfectly  honest  and  just  declaration  of  the  re 
sults  of  the  election  in  Louisiana  would  be  made  by  this  tri 
bunal  !  That  this  declaration  was  a  deliberate  and  conscious 
falsehood  must  be  accepted  as  certain,  unless  we  can  defend 
these  distinguished  statesmen  by  attributing  to  them  a  dens 
ity  of  ignorance  respecting  well-known  events  as  disgraceful 
to  them  as  lying. 

That  General  Garfield  had  lent  himself  to  the  returning 
board  in  its  conspiracy  to  cheat  the  people  of  the  United 
States  is  still  more  fully  confirmed  by  its  action  while  can 
vassing  the  votes.  It  refused  to  fill  the  vacancy  in  its  body 
and  supply  the  wanting  political  element.  It  wrapped  itself 
in  the  mantle  of  darkness  by  excluding  from  its  sessions  the 
public,  the  general  press  reporters,  the  supervisors  and  reg 
istrars  of  elections,  and  the  candidates  for  office  and  their  at 
torneys.  In  a  number  of  instances  the  sealed  returns  from 
distant  parishes  were  clandestinely  opened,  and  the  papers 
tampered  with  after  they  had  been  received  by  the  board. 
All  these  facts  were  known  to  General  Garfield.  It  was 
simply  impossible  to  attend  its  daily  sessions  and  scrutinize 
its  action  without  realizing  that  forgery,  perjury,  and  fraud, 
were  liberally  woven  into  its  work.  On  the  alleged  ground  of 
intimidation  it  flagrantly  violated  the  law  from  which  it  derived 
its  authority,  by  throwing  out  the  ballots  of  7,000  or  8,000 
legally  qualified  voters,  in  order  to  secure  a  Republican  vic 
tory.  This  action  was  founded  solely  on  this  ground,  there 
being  no  charge  of  repeating,  ballot-stuffing,  or  fraudulent 
returns  ;  and  inasmuch  as  the  board  could  take  no  action  in 
any  way  on  the  subject  of  intimidation,  without  a  strict  com 
pliance  with  the  detailed  and  circumstantial  provisions  of  the 
state  election  law,  and  as  the  fact  is  undenied  and  undeniable 
that  no  such  compliance  was  made,  the  board  had  no  juris 
diction  whatever  except  to  count  the  votes  returned.  Its 
action  in  counting  them  for  Hayes  and  Wheeler  was  there 
fore  an  utter  defiance  of  the  laws  of  the  state,  a  flagrant  out 
rage  upon  justice  and  decency,  and  a  hideous  mockery  of 
representative  government.  This,  gentlemen,  is  my  indict- 


212  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

ment  against  General  Garfield.  He  was  an  accomplice  in 
the  crime  of  cheating  the  people  of  the  United  States  by 
placing  in  the  Presidential  chair  a  man  who  was  never  elected, 
and  by  this  act  of  treason  against  free  institutions  has  for 
feited  his  right  to  the  suffrages  of  the  American  people. 

But  this  is  not  all.  After  the  Louisiana  fraud  had  been 
consummated,  and  the  apprehension  of  civil  war  led  to  the 
proposal  of  an  electoral  commission  to  settle  the  disputed 
question,  General  Garfield  opposed  the  measure  for  two  re 
markable  reasons.  He  denied  the  necessitv  for  any  such  tri 
bunal,  on  the  ground  that  the  Vice-President  had  the  right 
to  count  the  vote  and  declare  the  result.  It  is  true  that  this 
right  had  been  denied  by  nearly  all  the  leading  men  of  the 
country,  of  whatever  party,  and  that,  according  to  an  un 
broken  line  of  precedents,  beginning  with  the  election  of 
Washington  and  reaching  down  to  the  year  1876,  the  count 
ing  of  the  electoral  vote  is  rightfully  done  by  Congress,  or 
under  its  authority  and  direction.  But  General  Garfield 
knew  that  the  Vice-President  was  ready  to  assume  the  dis 
puted  authority,  and  that  the  President,  with  the  army  and 
navy,  was  ready  to  back  him  ;  while  he  saw  that  the  plan  of 
an  electoral  commission  might,  possibly,  save  the  Presidency 
to  Governor  Tilden.  His  party  had  the  military  behind  it,  and 
he  knew  how  that  power  would  be  employed.  But  he  also 
strenuously  opposed  the  particular  features  of  the  electoral 
plan.  His  principal  ground  of  opposition  was  that  it  would 
enable  the  commission  to  go  behind  the  returns  and  sift  the 
real  facts  in  dispute.  This  was  altogether  natural,  for  it  is 
now  known  through  official  documents  that  as  a  "  visiting 
statesman"  he  had  taken  a  leading  part  in  manipulating  the 
returns  in  Louisiana,  and  smoothing  the  way  for  a  favorable 
decision  by  its  returning  board.  In  a  speech  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  on  the  25th  of  January,  1877,  he  declared 
that  the  electoral  bill  "grasps  all  the  power  and  holds  states 
and  electors  as  toys  in  its  hand.  It  assumes  the  right  of 
Congress  to  go  down  into  the  colleges  and  inquire  into  all 
the  acts  and  facts  connected  with  their  work.  It  assumes 


THE    ISSUES    OF   l88o.  213 

the  right  of  Congress  to  go  down  into  the  states,  to  review 
the  act  of  every  officer,  to  open  every  ballot-box,  and  to  pass 
judgment  upon  every  ballot  cast  by  7,000,000  Americans." 

This  was  General  Garfield's  opinion  as  a  member  of  Con 
gress  as  to  the  powers  conferred  upon  the  commission  ;  but, 
after  the  passage  of  the  bill,  he  became  a  member  of  this 
tribunal.  He  had  assisted  in  doctoring  the  returns  and  pre 
paring  the  case  which  was  to  settle  the  rights  of  "  seven  mil 
lions  of  Americans  ;  "  but  he  saw  no  impropriety  in  becom 
ing  himself  a  member  of  this  great  national  returning  board, 
and  as  such  he  took  the  following  oath :  "I,  James  A.  Gar- 
field,  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  impartially  examine  and 
consider  all  questions  submitted  to  the  commission,  of  which 
I  am  a  member,  and  a  true  judgment  give  thereon,  agreea 
bly  to  the  constitution  and  the  laws,  so  help  me  God."  But 
how  did  he  discharge  his  duty  under  this  oath?  In  every 
instance  he  voted  to  conceal  and  suppress  the  very  facts 
which,  on  his  own  showing,  he  was  solemnly  bound  to  aid 
in  uncovering.  He  knew  all  the  facts  to  which  I  have  refer 
red  relative  to  the  frauds  and  violations  of  law  in  Louisiana. 
He  knew  that  its  returning  board  had  openly  and  defiantly 
trampled  under  foot  the  law  creating  it,  and  from  which  it 
derived  its  authority  to  count  the  vote  of  the  state  ;  and  that 
its  action  in  counting  it  for  Hayes  and  Wheeler  was  therefore 
utterlv  null  and  void.  He  knew  that  the  commission,  with- 

^  • 

out  violating  the  rights  of  the  state,  without  going  "down 
into  the  colleges"  and  inquiring  "into  all  of  the  acts  and 
facts  connected  with  their  work,"  but  simply  by  ascertaining 
whether  the  election  laws  of  Louisiana  had  been  complied 
with,  would  be  warranted  in  rejecting  the  action  of  the  board 
and  awarding  the  state  to  Tilden  and  Hendricks.  But  he 
had  joined  his  party  associates  in  the  foregone  conclusion 
that  the  Democratic  party  must  be  defeated  at  all  hazards, 
and  it  was  .too  late  to  call  a  halt  in  the  devilish  march  of 
events  through  which  forty-five  millions  of  people  were  to 
be  deprived  of  the  right  to  choose  their  chief  functionaries. 
The  stupendous  national  juggle  must  be  performed,  and  he 


214  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

was  ready  to  act  his  part.  The  voice  of  the  republic  had  to 
be  strangled,  and  he  nerved  himself  for  the  work  ;  and  it 
can  not  be  denied  that  in  accomplishing  it  he  achieved  a  per 
fect  triumph  over  his  conscience  and  his  country.  He  was, 
however,  only  the  faithful  servant  of  his  master.  He  was  a 
part  of  the  long-used  machinery  which  had  allowed  nothing 
to  stand  in  its  way.  The  theft  of  the  Presidency  was  simply 
the  leaf  and  flower  of  that  party  idolatry  which  has  been 
pronounced  a  more  soul-destroying  evil  in  our  republic  than 
the  worship  of  idols  in  a  heathen  land.  It  was  the  inevitable 
fruitage  of  long  years  of  organized  political  corruption  and 
prosperous  maladministration  ;  and  nothing  could  be  more 
perfectly  natural  than  the  effort  of  his  party  to  crown  General 
Garfield  with  the  great  office  which  he  aided  in  snatching 
from  its  rightful  claimant  four  years  ago,  while  nothing  could 
more  absolutely  demonstrate  its  unfitness  to  govern  the  coun 
try  and  the  duty  of  the  people  to  sentence  it  to  death. 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM. 


DELIVERED  AT  INDIANAPOLIS,  ON  THE  28TH  OF  AUGUST,  1884. 


Mr.  Chairman  and  Fellow-Citizens:  The  time  was  when 
our  party  platforms  had  a  recognized  value,  and  formed  a 
part  of  the  political  education  of  the  people.  Without  eva 
sion  or  clap-trap,  they  embodied,  in  clear  and  compendious 
statements,  what  was  believed  to  be  the  essential  truth  in 
politics,  as  a  basis  of  political  action  and  a  guide  in  the  ad 
ministration  of  public  affairs.  Certain  propositions  were  di 
rectly  affirmed  on  the  one  side,  and  as  directly  denied  on  the 
other,  and  after  the*  election  the  country  understood  what 
had  been  decided. 

All  this  has  been  changed  since  the  close  of  the  late  war 
and  the  reconstruction  of  the  government.  In  the  year  1872 
the  Democratic  and  Republican  platforms  were  substantially 
identical,  and  the  controversy  turned  upon  the  personality  of 
the  candidates  and  the  supposed  spirit  and  tendencies  of  the 
opposing  forces.  This  was  true  again  in  1876,  when  the 
platforms  were  fitly  described  as  different  words  set  to  the 
same  music.  It  was  true  in  1880,  and  history  again  repeats 
itself  in  1884.  ^  do  not  deny  that  on  the  tariff  question  our 
great  parties  are  generally  understood  to  be  radically  op 
posed  ;  but  their  disagreement  is  set  forth  with  such  marvel 
ous  carefulness  and  elaboration  in  their  platforms  that  the 
issue  practically  drops  out  of  the  canvass  in  the  effort  to  de 
fine  it. 

And  yet,  during  all  these  years,  the  most  vital  problems 
have  demanded  attention,  and  the  cry  of  reform  has  been 
constantly  sounded,  and  in  louder  and  louder  tones.  The 


216 


SELECTED    SPEECHES. 


reform  of  our  systems  of  tariff  and  taxation  has  been  stead 
ily  pressing  its  way  to  the  front  as  an  imperative  necessity. 
So  has  the  reform  of  the  civil  service.  A  very  radical  re 
form  of  our  land  policy  has  long  been  needed,  including  the 
rescue  of  every  department  of  the  government  from  its 
shameful  thralldom  to  great  corporations,  and  the  reassertion 
of  the  rights  of  the  people  through  the  emancipation  of  the 
public  domain.  Above  all,  the  country  has  needed  such  a 
regeneration  of  our  politics  as  would  inspire  the  conduct  of 
public  affairs  once  more  with  the  great  moralities  that  sanc 
tify  private  life,  and  expel  from  the  public  service  the  armies 
of  rogues  and  mercenaries  that  have  been  mobilized  and 
made  ravenous  under  a  long  lease  of  power. 

But  how  shall  this  work  of  reform  be  accomplished? 
Shall  we  commit  it  to  the  Republican  party?  Is  there  any 
ground  even  for  hope  in  that  direction?  That  party  has 
been  in  power,  with  slight  exceptions,  for  nearly  the  fourth 
of  a  century,  and  you  know  the  result.  I  do  not  deny  that 
in  its  early  days  it  was  a  party  of  reform.  It  drew  its  life 
from  that  idea.  Its  claim  to  be  a  party  of  great  moral  ideas 
was  not  without  foundation.  Its  creed  was  the  sacredness  of 
human  rights  and  the  natural  equality  of  men.  It  blazoned 
its  principles  upon  its  banner,  and  noble  and  heroic  men  ral 
lied  under  it,  and  were  ready,  if  need  be,  to  die  for  their 
convictions,  while  the  Republican  masses  were  lifted  up  and 
ennobled  by  the  struggle.  Under  the  lead  of  Lincoln,  Sew- 
ard,  Chase,  Sumner,  Greeley,  and  their  associates,  it  won 
for  itself  a  crown  of  imperishable  glory  ;  but  the  issue  which 
now  most  deeply  concerns  the  people  relates  to  its  record 
after  its  great  work  had  been  accomplished,  and  the  govern 
ment  had  resumed  the  regular  and  normal  administration  of 
affairs.  The  question,  it  has  been  well  observed,  is  not  what 
the  party  has  done,  but  what  it  will  do  ;  not  what  it  was,  but 
what  it  is. 

As  long  ago  as  1868  the  Republican  party  pledged  itself 
in  its  platform  to  reform  the  corruptions  that  had  then  crept 
into  the  national  administration.  This  was  its  first  demand 


THE  REPUBLICAN    PARTY  AND    REFORM.  21 7 

for  "reform  within  the  party,"  but  it  went  about  the  work 
after  so  strange  a  fashion  that  a  year  before  the  close  of 
General  Grant's  administration  the  chief  founders  and  early 
leaders  of  the  party  were  obliged  to  desert  it  in  order  to  save 
themselves  from  insufferable  shame  and  self-reproach.  Cor 
ruption  and  greed  were  the  order  of  the  day,  and  the  men 
who  demanded  reform  were  hunted  down  as  the  enemies  of 
Republicanism.  But  in  defiance  of  this  record  General  Grant 
was  unanimously  re-nominated  in  1872,  on  a  platform  reitera 
ting  the  demand  for  reform,  and  he  was  reflected  by  286 
electoral  votes,  carrying  thirty-one  of  the  thirty-seven  states, 
and  a  popular  majority  of  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  million. 
And  what  was  the  result  of  this  second  effort  at  reform? 
His  first  administration,  as  you  will  remember,  was  made 
almost  white  by  the  transcendant  and  over-arching  blackness 
of  his  second.  The  political  buccaneers  who  surrounded  him 
soon  after  his  first  election  were  very  formidably  reinforced, 
and  now  held  him  completely  in  their  power,  while  all  the 
decencies  of  politics  took  their  flight,  and  the  government  of 
the  United  States  became  the  spectacle  of  nations.  Before 
the  President  reached  the  middle  of  his  second  term  all  the 
great  Republican  states  of  the  North  were  lost  to  the  party, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  term  the  Republican  majority  in  the  Sen 
ate  had  dwindled  from  fifty-four  to  seventeen,  while  in  the 
House  the  majority  of  one  hundred  and  four  had  been  wiped 
out  to  give  place  to  a  Democratic  majority  of  seventy-seven. 
During  all  these  years  the  Republican  party  had  in  its  service 
both  houses  of  Congress,  the  army  and  navy,  the  federal  judi 
ciary,  and  the  unlimited  employment  of  the  appointing  power  ; 
yet  the  southern  states  were  in  so  fearfully  disordered  a  con 
dition  that  the  question  of  remanding  them  to  territorial  rule 
was  seriously  debated  by  prominent  Republican  leaders,  as 
it  is  to-day. 

But  in  the  canvass  of  1876  the  "  grand  old  party"  had 
the  unblushing  audacity  to  reassert  its  demand  for  reform. 
With  the  whole  power  of  the  government  at  its  command  it 
had  utterly  failed  in  the  business  ;  but  its  false  pretenses  had 


SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

proved  so  profitable  that  it  took  fresh  courage  in  its  work 
and  displayed  a  genuine  enthusiasm  in  entering  upon  new 
and  larger  tasks.  Its  triumph  over  its  own  conscience 
seemed  to  be  absolute,  and  its  devotion  to  evil  a  fascination. 
It  was  in  vain  to  reason  with  a  party  thus  devil-bent  upon  its 
methods.  It  was  in  vain  to  argue  that  a  party  once  thor 
oughly  corrupt  has  lost  the  power  of  self-recovery,  and  that 
devils  do  not  cast  out  devils,  and  could  not  be  trusted  if  they 
were  to  undertake  the  business.  The  Republicans,  it  was 
insisted,  were  at  all  events  not  so  bad  as  the  Democrats,  who 
must  be  kept  out  of  power  at  any  cost  and  to  the  last  extrem 
ity.  The  people,  however,  had  now  grown  weary  of  windy 
promises  and  longed  for  a  change  of  administration.  They 
really  hungered  for  reform,  but  they  meant  reform  in  fact — 
in  the  concrete — and  not  the  merely  abstract  and  disembod 
ied  virtue  which  had  so  long  been  the  staple  of  the  Republi 
can  leaders.  Tilden  and  Hendricks  accordingly  received  a 
majority  of  the  electoral  votes,  and  an  overwhelming  major 
ity  of  the  people. 

The  Republican  leaders,  however,  from  their  mount  of 
vision,  discovered  a  way  of  escape,  and  made  haste  in  fol 
lowing  it.  They  saw  that  by  subsidizing  the  state  officials 
of  Louisiana  and  Florida,  who  had  in  hand  the  work  of  tab 
ulating  and  counting  the  votes  of  those  states,  Hayes  and 
Wheeler  could  be  counted  in,  and  Tilden  and  Hendricks 
counted  out.  It  was  a  deliberate  and  well-planned  conspir 
acy  to  cheat  the  people  of  the  United  States  out  of  their  right 
to  choose  their  highest  functionaries,  and  it  worked  like  a 
charm.  It  was  accomplished  by  the  bribery,  forgery  and 
perjury  of  the  scoundrels  who  had  been  hired  to  play  their 
part  by  the  recognized  leaders  of  Republicanism,  who  well 
knew  that  Tilden  and  Hendricks  had  carried  the  states  refer 
red  to,  and  were  duly  elected  ;  while  every  one  of  these 
officials  was  subsequently  rewarded  by  lucrative  positions 
under  the  administration  which  had  been  helped  into  power 
by  his  crimes.  It  is  needless  to  go  into  details,  but  such  is 
the  record  of  the  party  which  was  then  howling  for  reform, 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         219 

and  for  "a  free  ballot  and  a  fair  count."  The  sense  of 
justice,  however,  still  burns  in  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
and  it  is  some  consolation  to  know  that  every  passing  year 
foreshadows,  with  renewed  clearness  and  certainty,  the 
damnation  of  history  which  awaits  the  party  leaders  who  be 
trayed  their  country  for  the  sake  of  power  and  plunder. 

The  Hayes  administration,  of  course,  made  its  first  ap 
pearance  tricked  in  the  robes  of  reform.  For  a  little  while  it 
seemed  to  have  a  spasm  of  virtue,  if  not  saintliness.  In 
some  of  its  features  sporadic  symptoms  of  reform  continued 
for  some  time  to  reveal  themselves,  and  there  was  a  show  of 
decency  and  a  pompous  modesty  in  parading  it,  which  be 
guiled  a  good  many  honest  people.  The  President  himself, 
early  in  his  term,  fell  completely  into  the  hands  of  the  same 
type  of  men  who  had  made  the  two  administrations  of  Gen 
eral  Grant  such  a  stain  upon  republican  institutions.  In  a 
word,  the  work  of  reform  had  so  completely  miscarried  un 
der  this  administration  that  when  the  Republican  national 
convention  of  1880  met  in  Chicago,  it  made  no  allusion  to  it 
in  the  first  draft  of  its  platform,  and  only  mustered  the  cour 
age  to  incorporate  an  unmeaning  resolution  on  the  subject  on 
motion  of  a  Massachusetts  delegate.  The  campaign  was 
vigorously  prosecuted  on  both  sides,  but  the  patronage  of 
the  government,  which  under  Republican  rule  had  become 
an  organized  machine  for  interfering  with  the  freedom  of 
elections,  placed  the  Democrats  at  a  great  disadvantage. 
The  Star-route  thieves  were  then  in  their  glory,  and  fur 
nished  very  large  supplies  for  campaign  purposes.  "  Money 
in  elections "  had  never  before  been  so  plentifully  and  po 
tently  employed.  Dorsey,  who  then  occupied  a  position 
similar  to  that  of  Elkins  in  the  present  canvass,  was  as  active 
and  sleepless  in  his  work  as  he  was  thoroughly  corrupt.  He 
sent  sufficient  money  to  Indiana  to  turn  that  state  over  to  the 
Republicans  ;  and  after  the  election  a  great  dinner  was  given 
him  in  New  York,  at  which  leading  merchants,  lawyers, 
journalists,  political  magnates,  literary  men  and  doctors  of 
divinity  united  in  doing  him  honor  as  "the  Napoleon  who 


22O  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

had  carried  Indiana,"  and  in  side-splitting  laughter  at  the 
humiliation  of  the  Democrats.  All  this  is  worth  remember 
ing  as  an  illustration  of  the  progress  and  triumph  of  "reform 
within  the  party."  It  also  exemplifies  the  blessedness  of  "  a 
free  ballot."  I  remember  the  time  when  the  word  election 
meant  choice,  and  implied  freedom  of  the  will.  A  vote  was 
understood  as  the  honest  expression  of  the  wishes  of  the 
voter.  It  was  believed  that  republican  institutions  rest  upon 
the  people's  will,  and  that  if  the  ballot  is  a  counterfeit,  the 
government  becomes  a  huge  imposture  and  an  organized  lie. 
I  had  read  in  one  of  Lord  Macaulay's  letters  to  his  constitu 
ents  "  that  the  man  who  surrenders  his  vote  to  caresses  or  im 
portunities  forgets  his  duty  as  much  as  if  he  sold  it  for  a  bank 
note."  The  people  had  been  taught  that  a  false  vote,  like 
the  crime  of  regicide  in  a  monarchy,  is  the  murder  of  the 
sovereign,  and  that  a  still  greater  guilt  attaches  to  the  rich 
rascal  who  buys  the  vote  of  the  poor  man,  who  may  sell  it  un 
der  the  pressure  of  want,  or,  perhaps,  to  relieve  the  pangs  01 
hunger.  And  yet  the  chief  priests  and  rulers  of  latter-day 
Republicanism  hold  a  jubilee  in  honor  6f  the  political  repro 
bate  who,  as  secretary  of  the  Republican  national  committee, 
smothered  the  voice  of  a  great  commonwealth  with  the  money 
committed  to  his  charge  for  the  purposes  of  the  campaign. 

The  story  of  reform  in  the  Republican  party  since  the 
inauguration  of  General  Garfield  is  soon  told.  His  assassin 
ation  connected  itself  with  a  wrangle  in  the  party  over  an 
appointment  which  was  an  open  violation  of  the  principle  of 
civil  service  reform  as  it  had  been  proclaimed  in  successive 
national  conventions.  He  had  not  committed  himself  to 
those  principles  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  and  under  Presi 
dent  Arthur  the  condition  of  affairs  became  so  sickening  and 
intolerable,  that  in  1882  Grover  Cleveland  carried  the  state 
of  New  York  by  a  majority  of  nearly  200,000  votes.  This 
phenomenal  triumph  was  followed  or  preceded  by  Demo 
cratic  victories  in  Ohio,  California,  Colorado,  Nevada,  Kan 
sas,  Michigan,  Connecticut,  Massachusetts  and  Pennsyl 
vania. 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         221 

It  was  a  political  revolution,  and  1882  sent  greeting  to 
1872  that  the  Liberal  Republicans  of  that  year  were  at  last 
vindicated.  The  New  York  Independents,  who  had  so  long 
hoped  against  hope,  now  confessed  that  "reform  within  the 
party"  was  "as  a  tale  that  is  told,"  and  that  the  complete 
overthrow  of  the  party  itself  was  the  only  remedy.  It  was 
almost  enough  to  make  Sumner  and  Greeley  turn  over  in 
their  graves.  The  Republican  leaders  saw  the  handwriting 
on  the  wall.  They  had  been  suddenly  and  unexpectedly 
brought  to  their  reckoning,  and  finally  compelled  to  go  to 
trial  on  the  sincerity  of  their  professions  ;  and  for  the  first 
time  set  about  the  work  of  reform  by  practical  methods  and 
with  apparent  earnestness.  But  it  was  a  death-bed  repent 
ance.  They  foresaw  the  approaching  end  of  their  power, 
and  quite  naturally  favored  such  regulations  affecting  ap 
pointments  to  office  as  would  leave  them  a  share  of  the  spoils 
under  a  Democratic  succession.  I  take  great  pleasure  in 
according  to  them  due  credit  for  what  they  then  did  and 
have  since  done  under  compulsion,  and  with  the  voluntary 
co-operation  of  Democrats,  but  as  the  final  -upshot  and  sum 
total  of  twenty  odd  years  of  uncontrolled  power  it  constitutes 
an  exceedingly  slender  capital  on  which  to  set  up  business  in 
the  work  of  reform. 

Such,  rapidly  sketched,  is  the  record  of  the  Republican 
party  for  the  past  sixteen  years.  But  it  now  reappears  as 
the  champion  of  reform.  With  an  effrontery  which  has  been 
the  natural  product  of  prosperous  imposture,  it  struts  before 
the  country  on  a  platform  of  promises  which  completely  out 
strip  all  its  past  performances.  It  pledges  itself  to  "  correct 
the  inequalities  of  the  tariff;  "  but  why  has  it  not  made  this 
correction  long  years  ago?  Has  anybody  hindered  it?  It 
favors  "a  re-adjustment  of  the  tariff' on  wool ;  "  but  why  has 
not  this  re-adjustment  been  made?  It  has  played  fast  and 
loose  with  the  question,  and  confesses  its  inability  to  deal  with 
it.  It  undertakes  to  say  precisely  what  sort  of  a  tariff*  sys 
tem  the  country  needs  ;  but  whose  fault  is  it  that  such  a  sys 
tem  has  not  been  [provided?  It  renews  its  demand  for  the 


222  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

reform  of  the  civil  service  ;  but  how  does  it  happen  that  this 
reform  has  not  long  since  been  accomplished?  For  sixteen 
years  the  party  has  been  prating  about  the  civil  service,  with 
the  power  all  the  while  in  its  own  hands  to  reform  it.  Why 
are  we  still  fed  on  promises,  and  the  law  against  political  as 
sessment  set  at  defiance  in  this  campaign?  It  says  the  pub 
lic  lands  "  should  be  reserved  for  small  holdings  by  actual 
settlers,"  and  condemns  "  the  acquisition  of  large  tracts  by 
corporations  or  individuals  ;"  but  the  irony  of  these  declara 
tions  is  transparent,  for  the  Republican  party  is  responsible  for 
the  grant  of  more  than  200,000,000  acres  of  the  public  domain 
to  railway  corporations,  being  an  area  equal  to  that  of  the  thir 
teen  original  states,  and  making  impossible  hundreds  of  thou 
sands  of  "  small  holdings  by  actual  settlers."  It  "  demands 
of  Congress  the  speedy  forfeiture  of  all  land  grants  which 
have  lapsed  by  reason  of  non-compliance  with  the  acts  of  in 
corporation  ;"  but  Congress,  during  long  years  of  Republi 
can  ascendency,  has  neglected  and  refused  to  perform  this 
duty,  and  to-day  at  least  100,000,000  acres  of  the  public  lands 
are  held  back  from  settlement  and  tillage  by  the  landless 
poor  by  corporations  that  have  not  complied  with  the  condi 
tions  prescribed  by  Congress.  It  calls  upon  Congress  to 
"  remove  the  burdens  on  American  shipping  ;"  but  it  imposed 
these  burdens  and  continues  them,  and  has  nobody  to  blame 
but  itself.  It  demands  the  enforcement  of  the  eight-hour 
law.  This  amazing  declaration  will  certainly  attract  the  at 
tention  of  the  workingmen  ;  but  they  will  remember  that  the 
party  has  never  enforced  the  law,  and  so  confesses  by  its  de 
mand.  It  declares  that  "  the  perpetuity  of  our  institutions 
rests  upon  the  maintenance  of  a  free  ballot,  and  an  honest 
count,  and  correct  returns."  It  is  sufficient  to  say  of  this 
declaration  that  it  comes  from  the  party  whose  returning 
board  performances  in  1876,  and  charming  exploits  under 
Dorsey  in  1880,  have  done  so  much  to  make  rascality  sub 
lime.  In  short,  this  last  creed  of  the  part}  constitutes  the 
record  of  its  failures  and  a  catalogue  of  its  transgressions, 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         223 

while   as  a   burlesque  upon   the   men  who   framed   it,  it  is  a 
masterpiece. 

But  in  reply  to  such  considerations  as  these,  we  are  fre 
quently  reminded  that  the  Democratic  party  is  as  bad  as  the 
Republican,  if  not  very  much  worse,  and  the  question  is 
asked,  "  How  can  you  hope  for  reform  by  a  change  of  ad 
ministration?  Granting  the  faults  of  Republicanism,  what  is 
to  be  gained  by  going  over  to  the  enemy?"  To  this  I  reply 
that  the  Republican  party,  like  the  plaintiff  in  an  action  of 
ejectment,  must  succeed  on  the  strength  of  its  own  title,  and 
not  on  the  alleged  weakness  of  that  of  his  adversary.  The 
argument  of  "You're  another"  is  not  legitimate.  I  am  not 
now  talking  about  the  question  of  slavery  and  the  war,  which 
received  ample  attention  when  they  were  in  order,  but  the 
administration  of  affairs  since  those  questions  were  set 
tled.  During  nearly  the  whole  of  this  period  the  Republican 
party  has  been  in  power,  and  it  must  be  judged  by  its  acts, 
while  the  Democratic  party  has  had  no  such  opportunity  to 
make  its  record,  and  can  not  be  condemned  on  the  principle 
of  imputed  guilt.  But  no  party,  I  repeat,  has  a  right  to  suc 
ceed  on  a  platform  made  up  merely  of  the  wickedness  of  its 
rival,  and  no  reform  is  possible  through  any  such  perversion 
of  moral  principles.  The  Republican  party,  pluming  itself 
on  its  early  record,  and  growing  more  and  more  hungry  for 
power  with  each  victory,  has  at  last  assumed  its  own  ex 
istence  as  of  divine  appointment.  It  is  no  longer  a  party 
merely,  but  an  institution.  Its  own  misdeeds  are  to  be  con 
doned  on  the  ground  that  the  country  will  be  ruined  if  the 
Democratic  party  should  succeed,  and  therefore  no  bolting 
must  be  allowed  under  any  circumstances.  If  Republicans 
should  go  over  to  the  other  side,  or  become  the  nucleus  of  a 
new  party,  it  would  be  fatal  to  discipline,  and  thus  threaten 
the  ruin  of  the  country  by  opening  the  way  for  a  Democratic 
victory.  I  had  occasion,  four  years  ago,  to  refer  to  this  con 
cubinage  of  politics  and  theology,  through  which  the  Repub 
lican  party  has  so  long  ruled  the  country,  and  which  still 
blocks  the  way  of  reform.  We  should  remember  that  conse- 


224  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

quences  are  often  the  scarecrows  of  fools  and  the  arguments 
of  knaves.  The  very  first  step  toward  reform  is  to  drive  from 
power  the  party  that  has  completely  demonstrated  its  unfit- 
ness  to  rule,  and  thus  to  make  possible  the  renovation  of  our 
politics  under  new  leaders  and  healthier  conditions.  With 
out  this  starting  point  reform  is  as  impossible  as  would  be  the 
making  of  a  journey  without  taking  the  first  step.  This  is 
the  logic  of  politics,  as  illustrated  by  facts.  Mr.  Calkins, 
the  Republicon  candidate  for  governor  of  Indiana,  tells  us 
that  his  party  must  continue  to  govern  the  country  till  a  bet 
ter  one  shall  make  its  appearance.  Of  course  he  and  his  as 
sociates  will  claim  the  right  to  decide  when  a  better  party 
has  appeared,  so  that  the  worse  may  get  out  of  the  way  ;  but 
as  bad  parties  never  confess  their  sins,  and  never  yield  up 
power  until  they  are  compelled  to  do  so,  his  theory  of  politics 
would  keep  the  Republican  party  in  power  forever. 

The  first  and  indispensable  condition  to  the  creation  of  a 
better  party  is  the  disruption  of  old  ones,  through  which  their 
better  elements  may  be  set  free  and  recombined.  I  was  a 
member  of  the  old  Whig  party  when  the  Free-soil  bolt  of 
1848  occurred,  and  I  well  remember  how  the  leaders  of  that 
party  remonstrated  with  their  bolters.  We  were  told  that 
the  Whig  party  was  certainly  better  than  the  Democratic, 
and  that  our  desertion  from  the  old  banner  would  only 
strengthen  the  hands  of  the  enemy  and  defeat  the  end  we 
had  in  view.  But  the  bolt  proceeded,  and  the  result  was  the 
formation  of  the  Republican  party.  It  was  a  bolt.  It  never 
could  have  existed  if  the  philosophy  of  Mr.  Calkins  had  been 
accepted,  and  the  two  old  parties  would  have  continued  their 
race,  neck  and  neck,  in  a  nominal  strife  over  dead  issues  and 
a  real  struggle  for  the  spoils.  My  old  Republican  friends 
are  simply  repeating  the  folly  of  the  Whigs  of  1848,  while 
the  Independent  Republicans  in  this  canvass  are  following 
in  the  footsteps  of  the  bolters  of  that  time.  I  rejoice  in  the 
spectacle  of  this  new  revolt  against  party  despotism,  and 
only  regret  that  it  did  not  come  sooner.  But  it  will  accom 
plish  its  mission,  as  did  its  predecessor  of  1848.  The  old 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         225 

Whig  party  perished,  not  merely  because  the  issues  on  which 
it  was  organized  had  been  settled,  but  because  its  conscience 
left  it,  and  drew  after  it  an  element  without  which  the  organ 
ization  was  doomed  to  wither  and  rot.  These  Independents 
have  adopted  the  true  method.  They  have  simply  followed 
the  example  of  Fox  and  Wesley  in  a  different  field  of  reform  ; 
for  these  grand  men  did  not  commit  the  folly  of  trying  to 
purify  the  corrupt  hierarchies  of  their  time  by  remaining 
within  them,  but  waged  their  war  from  without,  and  thus 
laid  the  foundation  for  great  historic  movements  by  rallying 
to  their  standards  the  true  men  of  all  denominations  and 
creeds. 

Let  me  now  refer  briefly  to  the  Republican  candidates. 
In  doing  so,  I  shall  but  follow  a  step  further  in  the  line  of 
argument  already  adopted  ;  for  the  character  of  a  party  is  to 
be  gauged  by  that  of  its'  deliberately  chosen  representatives. 
I  freely  admit  that  Mr.  Elaine  is  the  choice  of  a  very  large 
majority  of  his  party.  His  nomination  was  not  the  work  of 
its  leaders,  but  its  rank  and  file.  He  was  chosen  by  the 
party  whose  record  of  violated  promises  and  shameless  mis- 
government  should  make  every  honest  man  in  it  blush  ;  and 
the  same  judgment  must  pass  upon  both  candidate  and  party. 
Its  masses  knew  him  well  through  his  public  record  of  twenty 
3'ears  in  the  House  and  Senate,  and  as  President  Garfield's 
Secretary  of  State.  They  knew  him  well  in  1876,  when  he 
only  escaped  a  Presidential  nomination  by  an  accident,  and 
his  stock-jobbing  record  had  just  been  made  familiar  to  the 
American  people.  They  knew  him  as  a  popular  favorite  in 
his  party  in  1880,  and  they  nominated  him  this  year  with 
their  eyes  wide  open,  and  can  not  plead  ignorance  of  his 
character.  If,  therefore,  we  can  ascertain  what  that  charac 
ter  is,  it  may  afford  another  illustration  of  the  claims  of  the 
party  as  the  champion  of  political  reform. 

From  the  year  1863  to  1871,  I  served  with  Mr.  Elaine  in 
the  House  of  Representatives.     I  have  occasionally  met  him 
since,  and  have   never  received  anything  but  courtesy  and 
15 


226  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

kindness  at  his  hands.  In  discussing  his  fitness  for  the  Pres 
idency  I  am  therefore  without  even  the  shadow  of  a  motive 
to  do  him  the  slightest  personal  or  political  injustice.  He  is 
lauded  by  his  friends  as  a  great  statesman,  and  frequently 
compared  to  Gladstone.  The  New  York  Tribune  speaks  of 
him  as  "the  foremost  man  of  the  time,"  and  as  having 
"reached  and  passed  the  high-water  mark  of  American 
statesmanship."  But  when  a  bill  of  particulars  is  demanded, 
setting  forth  the  several  achievements  which  would  justify 
this  estimate,  his  champions  find  themselves  exceedingly  em 
barrassed.  What  famous  act  of  statesmanship  has  he  ever 
espoused  and  accomplished?  None  of  his  friends  can  spec 
ify  it.  His  name  recalls  no  great  principle  and  no  great 
measure  of  policy.  He  is  a  famous  party  leader,  but  only  in 
the  sense  of  inspiring  his  followers  and  drilling  and  deploy 
ing  them  in  effective  party  work.  He  has  neither  originated 
any  important  bill  nor  shown  himself  the  conspicuous  advo 
cate  of  any  important  measure.  He  has  taken  the  lead  in 
none  of  the  great  questions  that  have  agitated  the  country 
during  his  long  term  of  public  service  in  the  House  and  Sen 
ate,  and  covering  the  most  memorable  epoch  in  our  history. 
The  finances,  the  public  lands,  the  civil  service,  the  war  pol 
icy  of  the  government,  the  slavery  question,  reconstruction, 
negro  suffrage,  the  several  constitutional  amendments,  and 
other  vital  questions  were  all  debated,  and  some  of  them 
should  have  called  forth  the  marvelous  resources  of  this 
"foremost  man  of  the  time;"  but,  although  he  made  some 
respectable  speeches,  and  almost  invariably  voted  with  his 
party  friends,  he  said  nothing  and  did  nothing  to  establish 
the  extravagant  claim  now  set  up  in  his  behalf.  As  an  anti- 
slavery  leader,  although  now  the  great  champion  of  the  ne 
gro,  his  record  is  not  remarkable,  and  is  not  sound  according 
to  Republican  tests. 

In  looking  over  his  recently  published  volume  I  find  that 
he  whitewashes  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  which  played  so 
large  a  part  in  the  early  days  of  his  party.  He  defends  the 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         227 

famous  7th  of  March  speech  of  Daniel  Webster.  He  eulo 
gizes  the  Missouri  compromise  of  1820,  which  all  earnest 
anti-slavery  men  have  so  unitedly  deplored.  He  belittles 
the  significance  and  moral  purpose  of  the  anti-slavery  move 
ment  of  the  Northern  States,  and  represents  the  South  as 
struggling  for  an  equilibrium  in  the  Senate,  through  which  it 
might  secure  the  spoils  of  office.  Coming  down  to  later 
times,  his  position  was  not  defensible  on  Republican  grounds 
on  the  questions  of  reconstruction  and  negro  suffrage.  In 
an  article  published  a  few  years  since  in  the  North  American 
Review  he  says:  "  The  Southern  States  could  have  been 
readily  readmitted  to  all  their  powers  and  privileges  in  the 
Union  by  accepting  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  and  negro 
suffrage  would  not  have  been  forced  upon  them."  This  was 
Mr.  Blaine's  idea  of  Republicanism.  It  simply  meant  that 
his  party  was  willing  to  hand  over  the  negroes  of  the  rebel 
lious  states  to  the  codes  enacted  by  their  old  masters,  with 
out  any  voice  in  the  government,  on  condition  that  they 
should  not  be  counted  in  the  basis  of  representation.  This 
proposition  was  fortunately  rejected,  and  what  was  called  the 
Military  Bill  was  introduced  ;  but  this,  also,  as  first  reported, 
left  the  negro  without  the  ballot.  It  provided  that  the  rebel 
lious  states  should  only  be  restored  to  the  Union  on  condition 
that  negro  suffrage  should  be  secured  ;  but  their  restoration 
was  left  entirely  at  their  option,  and  so  long  as  they  chose  to 
reject  the  condition  specified  the  negroes  were  completely  at 
their  mercy. 

What  was  wanted  to  give  complete  validity  and  force  to 
this  plan  was  an  amendment  making  it  merely  provisional, 
and  providing  that  pending  the  decision  of  the  question  the 
negroes  should  have  the  ballot.  Without  this  amendment 
they  were  turned  adrift  and  helpless  ;  but  when  it  was  pro 
posed  Mr.  Blaine  voted  against  it,  and  did  everything  in  his 
power  to  defeat  it.  It  was  adopted  in  spite  of  his  opposition, 
as  the  Congressional  Record  will  show  ;  but  I  refer  to  it  as  an 
illustration  of  his  statesmanship  and  of  his  fidelity  to  the  negro 
in  the  day  of  his  great  peril.  I  do  not  lose  sight  of  Mr. 


228  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

Blaine's  magnetism,  which  is  so  often  dwelt  upon  by  his 
friends.  I  admit  that  he  is  magnetic.  There  must  be  some 
explanation  of  his  hold  upon  his  party,  and  in  the  absence  of 
other  assignable  reasons  I  accept  this.  He  draws  people  to 
him  surprisingly,  including  honest  men  and  rogues,  saints 
and  sinners,  native  and  adopted  citizens.  But  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  is  not  carried  on  by  magnetism. 
The  fathers  of  the  republic  never  dreamed  of  an  idea  so  per 
fectly  original  and  refreshing.  What  the  country  needs  in  a 
President  is  statesmanship,  solid  sense  and  an  honest  pur 
pose.  I  admit,  too,  that  he  is  a  brilliant  man  ;  but  brilliancy 
is  no  more  needed  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs  than  mag 
netism.  It  might  render  Mr.  Elaine  very  picturesque  and 
spectacular,  as  we  have  seen  him  through  the  dissolving 
views  of  his  career  in  the  state  department ;  but  the  American 
people  are  not  in  love  with  such  pageantries.  They  would 
much  prefer  an  honest  man  without  brilliancy  to  a  brilliant 
man  without  honesty.  Kindred  observations  apply  to  the 
efforts  of  Mr.  Blaine's  friends  to  have  him  pose  before  the 
country  as  a  ''Plumed  Knight."  This  may  tickle  the  imag 
ination  of  certain  classes,  but  the  days  of  knight  errantry  are 
ended,  and  neither  the  knight  nor  his  plume  is  needed  in  the 
sober  and  unsentimental  work  of  American  politics. 

What  is  his  record  as  a  reformer?  Has  he  ever  been 
heard  of  as  an  advocate  of  civil  service  reform  prior  to  the 
date  of  his  letter  of  acceptance?  He  was  silent  during  the 
jubilee  of  roguery  which  signalized  the  two  administrations 
of  General  Grant,  and  has  remained  so  ever  since,  but  he  is 
not  wholly  without  a  record.  In  1875,  while  Speaker  of  the 
House,  he  so  organized  the  Committee  on  Civil  Service  Re 
form  that  nine  of  its  eleven  members  were  uncompromising 
foes  of  the  policy,  and  two  lukewarm  friends.  Under  the  lead 
of  this  committee  the  House  refused  any  appropriation  to  pay 
the  expenses  of  the  civil  service  commission ,  through  which  the 
reform  was  at  that  time  abandoned.  The  subject  has  been 
before  the  country  over  sixteen  years,  during  which  it  has 
found  its  way  into  our  party  platforms  and  received  the  at- 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         229 

tention  of  our  foremost  public  men.  Politicians  have  tried  to 
get  rid  of  it,  but  they  have  been  compelled  to  face  it,  while 
its  settlement  on  just  principles  has  become  inevitable.  But 
if,  during  all  these  years,  Mr.  Elaine  has  at  any  time  favored 
the  reform,  he  has  admirably  succeeded  in  keeping  it  a  secret. 
Let  me  add  that  in  his  frequent  references  to  the  spoils  sys 
tem,  in  the  volume  referred  to,  he  nowhere  condemns  it,  but 
evidently  regards  it  as  the  natural  and  unavoidable  incident 
of  practical  politics  in  the  United  States,  while  among  his 
most'active  and  zealous  supporters  are  to  be  found  Robeson, 
Elkins,  Clayton,  Dorsey,  Brady,  and  the  very  worst  elements 
in  American  political  life. 

Has  Mr.  Blaine  at  any  time  shown  his  hand  in  opposition 
to  the  growing  power  of  our  great  railways  over  the  govern 
ment,  through  which  so  many  millions  of  acres  of  the  peo 
ple's  patrimony  have  been  withheld  from  settlement  and  till 
age,  and  so  many  of  our  public  men  debauched?  On  the 
contrary,  he  has  been  the  steadfast  friend  and  ally  of  these 
corporations  in  every  time  of  need.  While  in  the  Senate  he 
opposed  the  Edmunds-Thurman  bill  requiring  the  Pacific 
Railroads  to  establish  sinking  funds  for  the  payment  of  their 
debts  to  the  government,  and  dishonestly  filled  his  pockets 
while  in  the  House  with  money  received  from  one  of  these 
corporations  for  services  voluntarily  rendered  while  speaker, 
as  I  shall  presently  show.  If  there  is  any  public  man  in  the 
Union  who  is  well  understood  to  be  the  right  hand  man  of 
Jay  Gould  and  the  great  railway  corporations  of  the  country, 
and  their  unflinching  friend  under  all  circumstances,  that 
man  is  James  G.  Blaine.  There  has  never  been  the  faintest 
suspicion  as  to  his  perfect  loyalty  to  their  interests,  and  the 
conduct  of  his  friends  in  now  parading  him  as  the  champion 
of  "  actual  settlers"  and  the  foe  of  these  land-grabbing  mo 
nopolies,  supplies  us  with  as  fine  a  mosaic  of  knavery  and 
impudence  as  we  can  ever  hope  to  see. 

He  is  a  man  of  genius,  and  has  long  been  a  great  power 
in  his  party.  He  has  seen  corruption  and  greed  grasping  all 
the  natural  agencies  of  society  for  their  own  baleful  pur- 


230  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

poses.  He  has  had  great  and  multiplied  opportunities  for 
thwarting  the  enemies  of  the  people  and  serving  the  poor  in 
their  hard  fight  with  corporate  rapacity  ;  but  he  has  lifted 
neither  hand  nor  voice  in  their  behalf,  while  always  playing 
his  part  as  a  shifty  ally  of  organized  cupidity  and  pelf. 

And  here  the  way  is  naturally  opened  for  considering  the 
character  of  Mr.  Elaine  as  illustrated  by  his  jobbery  in  Con 
gress.  I  know  that  in  dealing  with  this  topic  we  are  warned 
by  leading  Republican  politicians  and  newspapers  to  beware. 
They  remind  us  of  what  they  call  the  "  campaign  of  mud  " 
against  General  Garfield  in  1880,  and  of  his  triumph  at  the 
polls,  while  they  hope  thus  to  divert  attention  from  the 
charges  now  urged  against  Mr.  Elaine.  As  to  the  campaign 
of  1880,  I  answer,  as  I  did  at  the  time,  that  if  any  "  mud  ' 
was  flung  at  General  Garfield,  it  had  previously  been  carted 
by  the  Republicans  themselves  and  dumped  upon  his  door 
steps.  All  the  charges  were  of  Republican  parentage  and 
supported  by  Republican  proof;  and  they  were  not  ineffect 
ual.  I  believe  it  entirely  safe  to  say  that  but  for  Dorsey's 
money  in  Indiana  and  kindred  illustrations  of  the  Republican 
gospel  of  "  a  free  ballot"  the  Democratic  ticket  would  have 
triumphed. 

I  do  not  deem  it  necessary  to  discuss  Mr.  Elaine's  rail 
road  transactions  at  any  length.  The  detailed  history  of  his 
performances  is  rapidly  finding  its  way  to  the  public,  and  I 
shall  only  refer  briefly  to  the  essential  facts,  and  the  evidence 
by  which  they  are  supported.  The  main  charge  is  that  in 
the  spring  of  1869,  when  a  bill  was  pending  before  the  House 
of  Representatives  which  sought  to  renew  a  land  grant  to  the 
Little  Rock  and  Fort  Smith  Railroad  in  Arkansas,  an  at 
tempt  was  made  to  defeat  it  by  an  amendment ;  that  Mr. 
Elaine,  being  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  sent  a  message  to 
General  Logan,  who  was  opposed  to  the  amendment,  that  it 
was  not  germain  to  the  bill,  which  point  of  order  was  accord 
ingly  raised,  and  sustained  by  the  Speaker,  and  the  bill  thus 
saved  :  and  that  Mr.  Elaine  soon  afterward  wrote  to  the  pro- 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         231 

moters  of  the  enterprise  calling  attention  to  the  service  he 
had  rendered  them,  and  after  some  negotiations  received 
from  them  his  appointment  as  selling  agent  of  the  bonds  of 
the  road  on  commission,  for  which  service  he  received  a 
number  of  such  bonds  as  his  percentage. 

Now,  what  is  the  answer  of  Mr.  Blaine  and  his  friends  to 
this  statement?  They  say  that  Caldwell  and  Fisher,  who 
were  the  friends  of  Blaine  and  the  promoters  of  the  railroad 
enterprise,  were  not  connected  with  it  at  the  date  of  the  pass 
age  of  the  bill ;  but  this  can  not  help  Mr.  Blaine.  His  rul 
ing  saved  the  land-grant,  which  was  the  controlling  induce 
ment  of  his  friends  to  undertake  the  building  of  the  road  ; 
and  as  an  honorable  man  he  had  no  right  to  compensation 
for  his  decision,  and  his  acceptance  of  it  is  as  dishonorable 
as  it  wrould  have  been  if  his  friends  had  been  connected  with 
the  road  and  lobbying  for  the  passage  of  the  bill  when  the 
ruling  of  the  Speaker  was  made. 

A  further  defense  is  set  up  by  Mr.  Blaine  in  his  speech  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  of  April  25,  1876,  that  the 
lands  were  granted  to  the  state  of  Arkansas,  and  that  the 
company  derived  its  life,  franchise  and  value  wholly  from 
the  state,  and  not  from  Congress.  This  remarkable  state 
ment  was  for  a  good  while  accepted  by  the  public  as  satis 
factory  ;  but  it  was  not  true,  and  Mr.  Blaine  certainly  knew 
it.  The  land-grant  of  the  Little  Rock  and  Fort  Smith  Rail 
road  was  about  to  lapse,  and  in  that  event  the  franchise  and 
securities  of  the  road  would  have  had  no  value.  No  man  at 
that  time  was  more  familiar  with  the  legislation  of  Congress 
than  Mr.  Blaine,  and  he  must  have  known  that  Warren 
Fisher  took  the  contract  because  the  land-grant  had  been 
revived.  The  attempt  of  Mr.  Blaine  to  secure  an  interest  in 
the  road  founded  on  his  official  services  in  saving  the  grant 
is  conclusive  evidence  of  the  falsehood  now  set  up  as  a  de 
fense.  In  his  letters  to  Warren  Fisher  of  October  4,  1869, 
Mr.  Blaine  carefully  sets  forth  his  services  in  securing  the 
revival  of  the  land-grant,  and  the  value  of  those  services  to 


232  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

his  friends  Fisher  and  Caldwell ;  but  if  the  road  derived  its 
life,  franchise  and  value  wholly  from  the  state,  why  should 
he  parade  his  parliamentary  ruling  to  these  promoters  of  the 
enterprise,  and  remind  them  of  "  what  a  narrow  escape  your 
bill  made  on  that  last  night  of  the  session?"  Out  of  his  own 
mouth  he  is  condemned  as  a  willful  falsifier  of  the  truth,  and 
the  speech  in  the  House  in  which  he  sets  up  his  pretended 
defense,  is  made  a  part  of  his  testimony  before  the  House 
Judiciary  Committee,  and  thus  involves  his  veracity  under 
oath. 

Mr.  Elaine,  in  the  speech  referred  to,  attempts  a  further 
defense  by  saying  that  the  securities  he  acquired  from  the 
Little  Rock  and  Fort  Smith  Railroad  were  obtained  by  "  pur 
chase,  on  the  same  terms  as  they  were  sold  on  the  Boston 
market  to  all  applicants."  If  this  is  true,  why  should  he  in 
his  letter  to  Warren  Fisher,  of  June  29,  1869,  sPeak  °f  ^s 
offer  as  "  generous,"  and  in  his  letter  of  July  2,  as  a  "most 
liberal  proposition,"  with  which  he  (Elaine)  was  "more  than 
satisfied?  "  And  why  should  he  promise,  in  the  letter  just 
cited,  that  he  would  not  be  "  a  dead-head  in  the  enterprise?" 
All  this  is  utterly  inexplicable  on  the  theory  that  he  ob 
tained  his  securities  on  the  same  terms  as  "all  applicants" 
purchased  them  on  the  Boston  market.  But  all  doubt  on 
this  question  is  absolutely  foreclosed  by  positive  proof.  War 
ren  Fisher  testified  before  the  judiciary  committee  that  he 
never  "  sold  to  James  G.  Blaine  any  bonds  of  the  Little 
Rock  and  Fort  Smith  Railroad  ;"  that  the  bonds  he  gave 
him  were  for  other  parties,  and  the  sale  of  them  was  nego 
tiated  through  him.  Mr.  Fisher's  account  with  Blaine,  pro 
duced  by  Mulligan,  who  was  Fisher's  confidential  book 
keeper,  shows  that  Blaine,  for  his  services,  was  to  have 
$130,000  of  land-grant  bonds,  and  $32,500  of  first  mortgage 
bonds.  Of  course,  then,  he  did  not  buy  his  securities  on  the 
same  terms  as  other  purchasers,  and  his  statement  to  that 
effect  is  another  deliberate  and  willful  falsehood.  The  sim 
ple  truth  is  that  for  his  parliamentary  ruling  which  secured 
the  revival  of  the  land  grant  he  was  made  the  agent  for  the 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         233 

sale  of  its  securities,  and  thus  allowed  to  fill  his  pockets. 
These  are  the  facts,  overwhelmingly  established  by  the  evi 
dence,  including  his  own,  and  their  impeachment  of  Mr. 
Elaine's  veracity  is  conclusive. 

In  prosecuting  this  inquiry  concerning  Mr.  Elaine's  rail 
road  transactions  and  his  personal  and  political  integrity,  it 
becomes  necessary  to  refer  to  the  sworn  statement  of  Mr. 
Mulligan,  and  his  trustworthiness  as  a  witness.  He  was  for 
many  years  the  confidential  bookkeeper  of  Jacob  Stanwood,  a 
brother-in-law  of  Mr.  Elaine.  He  was  also  for  several  years 
the  confidential  clerk  of  Mr.  Elaine's  friend,  Warren  Fisher, 
and  Warren  Fisher,  Sr.,  a  wealthy  retired  merchant,  made 
him  one  of  his  trustees  before  his  death,  and  he  still  manages 
the  estate.  Mr.  Elaine,  in  his  testimony,  makes  no  attempt 
to  impeach  Mr.  Mulligan's  veracity.  Warren  Fisher  testi 
fied :  "I  have  known  Mr.  Mulligan  intimately  sixteen  or 
twenty  years.  His  character  is  the  best.  I  would  say  it  is 
as  good  as,  or  perhaps  better  than,  that  of  any  man  I  ever 
knew."  Elisha  Atkins,  an  eminent  merchant  of  Boston,  cor 
roborates  Fisher's  testimony.  As  a  witness  he  is  unim- 
peached  and  unimpeachable.  What  does  he  tell  us?  I  have 
already  referred  to  a  portion  of  his  testimony  directly  contra 
dicting  the  statements  of  Mr.  Elaine  in  his  letters,  his  speech 
in  Congress  in  his  defense,  and  his  testimony  before  the 
House  Judiciary  Committee.  He  says  that  when  Mr.  Elaine 
asked  him  to  deliver  up  his  letters  to  Warren  Fisher  he  al 
most  got  down  on  his  knees  and  pleaded  for  the  letters,  say 
ing  they  would  ruin  him  for  life  ;  and  when  Mr.  Mulligan 
still  declined,  Mr.  Elaine  asked  him  to  think  of  his  wife  and 
six  children.  He  further  says  Mr.  Elaine  offered  to  get  him 
a  consulship  in  return  for  the  letters,  and  that  he  finally  gave 
them  to  him  under  a  pledge  of  honor  that  he  would  return 
them,  which  he  never  did.  He  also  says  that  Elaine  did  not 
read  the  letters  verbatim  in  the  House,  and  that  some  of  them 
were  not  read  at  all.  These  are  the  statements  of  an  intelli 
gent  and  perfectly  trustworthy  witness  and  an  old-time  per 
sonal  friend  of  Mr.  Elaine,  who  had  no  motive  whatever  to 


234  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

fabricate  what  he  asserts.  They  are  nearly  all  denied  by 
Mr.  Elaine  under  oath.  Whom  shall  we  believe?  As  I 
have  already  shown,  Mr.  Elaine  is  conclusively  discredited 
as  a  man  and  a  witness  by  his  own  letters  and  declarations 
and  by  the  testimony  of  disinterested  parties.  We  are  there 
fore  forced  to  believe  that  he,  conscious  of  his  guilt  and 
dreading  exposure,  played  the  dramatic  part  described  by 
Mr.  Mulligan,  and  by  his  entreaties  and  "  magnetism"  se 
cured  the  evidence  of  his  guilt,  used  such  parts  of  it  as  suited 
his  purpose,  and  violated  his  pledge  of  honor  by  refusing  to 
return  it.  It  should  be  remembered,  too,  that  he  declined  to 
hand  over  these  letters  to  the  reporters  after  he  had  used 
them,  and  thus  corroborated  the  statement  of  Mr.  Mulligan 
that  only  parts  of  them  were  read. 

But  I  need  not  further  pursue  the  inquiry  into  Mr.  Elaine's 
integrity  or  his  veracity  as  a  witness.  Let  me  add,  however, 
that  he  testified  before  the  Credit  Mobilier  committee  that  he 
had  never  owned  a  share  of  stock  in  the  Union  Pacific  Rail 
road  Company,  either  by  gift,  purchase,  or  in  any  way  what 
ever,  nor  received,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  a  single  cent 
from  said  company  ;  while  in  one  of  the  Mulligan  letters  to 
Warren  Fisher,  dated  April  13,  1872,  he  confesses  that  he 
was  a  part  owner  of  $6,000  of  the  land-grant  bonds  of  said 
railroad  company.  Furthermore,  Mr.  Elaine  had  the  con 
trol  of  a  considerable  interest  in  the  stock  of  the  Northern 
Pacific  Railway  Company,  as  shown  by  his  letter  to  Warren 
Fisher  of  November  25,  1870,  while  the  stock  was  dependent 
for  its  value  on  legislation  in  which  he  had  taken  part,  which 
connection  with  the  business  of  said  company  he  at  first  de 
nied,  afterward  vainly  endeavored  to  explain,  and  still  leaves 
in  the  fog.  . 

Such  is  the  moral  picture  of  the  Republican  candidate  for 
President,  painted  with  a  pencil  dipped  in  his  own  turpitude. 
The  facts  I  have  presented  have  never  been  controverted, 
and  never  will  be.  His  champions  now  make  no  attempt  to 
do  so,  but  rely  upon  party  traditions  and  the  party  machinery 
for  their  triumph.  His  guilt  is  conclusively  established  by 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         235 

his  own  letters,  his  declarations  in  Congress,  and  his  state 
ment  under  oath.  The  pettifogging  attempts  of  William 
Walter  Phelps  and  others  to  defend  him  have  been  com 
pletely  riddled  and  demolished,  and  he  stands  before  the 
country  self-convicted  of  the  disgraceful  charges  with  which 
leading  Republican  newspapers  eight  years  ago  and  four 
years  ago  branded  him.  General  Harrison,  in  his  recent 
speech  in  this  city,  tells  us  that  Mr.  Elaine  "has  been  slan 
dered,"  but  that  "  no  slanderer  has  ever  been  able  to  get  him 
on  the  run,"  But  the  General  knows  that  the  charges  I 
have  been  considering  are  the  veritable  truth,  and  that  Mr. 
Blaine  has  been  "on  the  run"  ever  since  they  were  made. 
As  the  friend  and  champion  of  the  Plumed  Knight,  why  does 
he  not  face  them?  Why  do  we  find  him,  also,  "on  the  run?" 
Can  he  glance  at  the  revolt  of  leading  Republicans  and  news 
papers  and  feel  safe  in  relying  upon  the  game  of  bluff? 

But,  as  I  have  said  before,  the  fight  of  the  Democrats  and 
their  allies  is  not  with  Mr.  Blaine,  but  the  party  he  represents. 
He  is  himself  a  mere  symptom.  He  is  but  the  leaf  and  flower 
of  long  years  of  organized  corruption  and  greed.  The  polit 
ical  chemistry  of  his  party  has  simply  obeyed  its  own  laws, 
and  the  qualities  which  it  held  in  solution  have  been  precipi 
tated  in  Mr.  Blaine.  He  is  its  expression  and  breath,  and 
the  work  we  have  in  hand  is  to  defeat  and  destroy  the  unhal 
lowed  dynasty  behind  him.  Some  of  our  Independent  Re 
publicans  declare  their  purpose  to  vote  the  Republican  ticket 
this  year  in  state  and  congressional  elections,  and  to  return 
to  the  old  party  after  casting  their  votes  for  Cleveland.  This 
seems  to  me  a  despicable  game  of  fast  and  loose,  an  in- 
inexcusable  trifling  with  the  crisis.  If  they  succeed  in  their 
purpose  to  elect  Governor  Cleveland,  I  think  there  will  be  no 
Republican  party  to  return  to.  When  it  loses  its  power  and 
the  spoils,  the  source  of  its  life  will  be  withdrawn,  and  the 
breath  will  go  out  of  its  body.  But  in  any  event,  the  work 
in  hand  is  to  strike  at  the  root  of  the  political  demoralization 
which  now  overshadows  the  land,  instead  of  merely  lopping 
off  its  branches  and  leaving  the  tree  to  flourish.  If  further 


236  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

proof  of  this  is  wanting,  we  have  it  in  a  recent  speech  of  Sen 
ator  Hoar,  in  which  he  says  the  men  who  nominated  Mr. 
Elaine  "are  the  very  flower  of  America,"  and  that  it  is  "  the 
nomination  of  what  is  best  in  our  American  life,"  and  "  best 
in  human  society  the  round  world  over."  Mr.  Hoar  sees 
men  as  trees  walking.  He  calls  evil  good,  and  good  evil. 
Unmindful  of  his  own  terrific  arraignment  of  his  party  ten  or 
eleven  years  ago,  he  now  sees  it  as  the  haunt  of  beauty  and 
blessedness,  and  the  only  hope  of  the  nation.  And  he  is  a 
fair  example  of  his  brethren.  They  are  so  besotted  with 
party  madness  that  they  seem  unconscious  of  the  dreadful 
infatuation  which  enthralls  them.  They  are  the  product  of 
their  party,  and  their  party  is  fatally  afflicted  with  the  dry 
rot  of  self-righteousness  and  the  paralysis  of  its  conscience. 
What  a  blessing  it  would  be  if  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
men  in  the  Republican  party  could  be  emancipated  from 
their  political  devil-worship,  which  is  far  more  pernicious 
than  the  idolatry  which  our  missionaries  to  heathen  lands  are 
laboring  to  abolish ! 

Of  the  Republican  candidate  for  Vice-President  I  need 
say  but  little.  To  me,  as  an  old  anti-slavery  man,  his  cham 
pionship  of  the  Black  Code  of  Illinois  seems  atrocious;  but 
this  happened  a  good  while  ago,  and  he  has  the  right  to 
plead  the  statute  of  limitations,  and  to  avail  himself  of  any 
benefit  it  may  afford  him. 

In  fairness,  too,  this  objection  should  be  considered  in 
connection  with  his  military  services  in  the  war  for  the  Union. 
As  a  reformer  his  character  is  exceedingly  bad.  He  was  a 
violent  opponent  of  civil  service  reform  as  long  ago  as  1869, 
and  among  the  foremost  of  General  Grant's  political  body 
guard  during  his  two  administrations.  He  has  practically 
exemplified  all  the  worst  evils  of  the  spoils  system  and  politi 
cal  nepotism,  and  is  a  fit  companion  piece  for  Mr.  Blaine. 
His  political  brethren  in  years  past  have  criticised  his  lack 
of  education  and  his  slaughter  of  the  English  language  ;  but 
everybody  will  now  be  rejoiced  to  learn  from  the  New  York 
Tribune  that  he  is  quite  a  scholarly  gentleman,  the  master  of 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  REFORM.         237 

several  languages  beside  his  own,  and  able  to  criticise  and 
correct  a  Harvard  professor.  He  is  probably  versed  in  Greek 
and  Hebrew  literature  and  a  doctor  of  divinity,  but  the 
Tribune  did  not  happen  to  mention  the  facts. 

It  can  not  be  necessary  to  speak  at  any  length  of  the 
Democratic  candidates.  Governor  Cleveland  is  known  to 
the  whole  country  by  his  successful  administration  of  the 
government  of  New  York.  He  signed  and  helped  execute 
the  civil  service  law  of  that  state,  and  the  act  prohibiting 
political  assessments.  He  has  shown  himself  a  man  of  cour 
age,  independence  and  rare  executive  ability,  while  the 
charge  of  political  corruption  has  never  been  breathed  against 
him.  His  public  acts  prove  that  he  holds  office  as  a  trust  for 
the  people,  and  that  he  is  a  Democrat  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
term.  His  proved  ability  to  resist  political  pressure,  and  his 
undoubted  personal  integrity,  amply  fit  him  for  the  great 
work  of  reform  which  a  very  protracted  maladministration 
of  the  government  has  made  an  imperative  necessity. 

Governor  Hendricks  has  long  been  known  as  a  statesman 
of  national  reputation  and  large  experience  in  public  affairs  ; 
and  the  issue  now  pending  between  personal  honor  and  po 
litical  integrity  on  the  one  side,  and  private  jobbery  and  offi 
cial  prostitution  on  the  ether,  makes  his  nomination  eminently 
appropriate  and  fortunate.  With  such  standard-bearers,  the 
true  men  of  all  parties  can  join  hands  with  a  good  con 
science  in  the  emancipation  of  the  nation  from  its  long  and 
grievous  bondage  to  evil  task-masters.  The  paramount  issue 
in  this  canvass  is  political  morality.  It  involves  the  question 
of  fidelity  to  trusts,  of  truth  and  falsehood,  right  and  wrong, 
honesty  and  dishonesty  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs.  Po 
litical  corruption  has  become  a  great  national  canker.  If 
the  misdeeds  of  a  public  man  are  to  go  unrebuked,  it  weak 
ens  the  standard  of  integrity  in  private  life.  One  public 
rascal,  it  has  been  well  observed,  becomes  the  father  of  a 
multitude  of  private  ones.  Breaking  out  in  high  places,  cor 
ruption  finds  its  level,  overflowing  and  poisoning  the  moral 
as  well  as  the  political  life  of  the  people.  No  reform  is  pos- 


238  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

sible  in  any  direction  if  we  are  not  able  to  stern  the  black 
tide  which  threatens  to  lay  waste  the  republic.  We  shall 
fail  hopelessly  if  we  can  not  inspire  in  the  people,  and  espe 
cially  in  the  coming  generation,  the  love  of  rectitude,  and 
restore  the  maxims  of  common  honesty  to  their  rightful 
sway.  No  theories  of  politics,  no  soundness  of  political  doc 
trines,  can  save  us,  if  the  integrity  of  our  public  men  loses  its 
attraction  for  the  people  ;  for  democracy  is  "  not  born  out  of 
the  sky  nor  wrought  in  dreams,"  but  demands  a  ceaseless 
conflict  of  the  people  with  ever-recurring  moral  dangers. 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY. 


READ    BEFORE    THE    HENDRICKS    CLUB,    ON    THE    l8TH    OF    SEP 
TEMBER,     l888. 


[The  "  auguries  of  victory  "  set  forth  in  this  speech  were  not  verified,  al 
though  fairly  warranted  by  the  political  outlook  at  the  time ;  and  they  were 
only  falsified  by  the  unexpected  revival  of  the  sectional  issue  towards  the  close 
of  the  canvass,  and  by  the  stupendous  outlay  of  money  in  controlling  the  float 
ing  vote  in  the  doubtful  states.] 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Fellow-Citizens:  The  supporters  of 
Cleveland  and  Thurman  are  to  be  congratulated  on  the  au 
spicious  opening  of  the  campaign  of  1888.  The  Democratic 
situation  is  as  animating  as  it  is  novel,  and  I  see  in  it  the  sure 
auguries  of  victory.  We  have  fairly  reached  that  parting  of 
the  ways  between  the  old  and  the  new  which  constitutes  an 
epoch,  and  every  man  can  see  this  who  is  able  to  discern  the 
signs  of  the  times.  We  are  on  the  eve  of  one  of  those  radi 
cal  changes  in  party  issues  and  party  machinery  which  have 
diversified  the  course  of  American  politics  from  the  begin 
ning,  and  created  well-defined  historic  periods ;  and  my 
judgment  is  greatly  at  fault  if  the  Republican  party  in  No 
vember  next  shall  not  be  as  completely  swept  out  of  existence 
as  was  the  old  Whig  party  in  the  campaign  of  1852.  Allow 
me  to  state  my  reasons  for  this  opinion. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Democratic  party  is  no  longer  hand 
icapped  by  the  Republican  theory  of  its  hopeless  depravity. 
From  the  final  reconstruction  of  the  government  to  the  can 
vass  of  1884  it  was  the  helpless  victim  of  a  foregone  conclu 
sion.  The  entire  stock  in  trade  of  the  Republican  leaders 
was  the  alleged  wickedness  of  the  Democrats.  It  was,  in 


240  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

fact,  the  platform  on  which  the  party  made  its  fight  in  every 
national  canvass  since  that  of  1868.  This  Democratic  wick 
edness  was  not  actual,  but  only  constructive.  It  was  im 
puted  diabolism,  and  was  depicted  in  startling  prophecies  of 
what  the  Democratic  party  -would  do  should  it  be  restored  to 
power.  The  election  of  a  Democratic  President  would  pros 
trate  our  manufactures  and  derange  the  finances.  It  would 
debase  the  currency  and  destroy  the  public  credit.  It  would 
lead  to  the  admission  of  Utah,  with  her  polygamy,  and  give 
the  Democrats  two  United  States  senators.  It  would  open 
the  way  for  the  creation  of  a  new  state  to  be  carved  out  of 
the  Indian  territory,  and  thus  add  two  more  United  States 
senators  to  the  side  of  Democracy  and  the  South.  It  would 
lead  to  the  division  of  Texas  into  five  states,  and  thus 
strengthen  the  ascendency  of  the  South  by  eight  additional 
United  States  senators.  It  would  reconstruct  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  by  duplicating  the  number  of 
judges,  three-fourths  of  whom  would  be  selected  from  the 
South,  and  then  the  reconstruction  acts  and  constitutional 
amendments  would  be  pronounced  unconstitutional  and  void. 
The  country  would  be  saddled  with  the  Confederate  debt 
and  the  Confederate  pensions,  while  the  bounties  and  pen 
sions  of  our  Union  soldiers  and  sailors  would  be  repudiated. 
The  doctrine  of  secession  would  be  reasserted  and  slavery 
would  be  re-established  throughout  the  South ;  and  the 
finishing  touch  was  frequently  given  to  this  catalogue  of 
Democratic  crimes  and  calamities  by  declaring  that  the  old 
slaveholders  were  preparing  inventories  of  their  lost  slaves 
to  be  presented  to  Congress  with  their  petitions  for  compen 
sation  when  the  Democratic  party  should  regain  the  control 
of  the  government. 

Gentlemen,  I  reproduce  these  stunning  prophecies  for  the 
special  edification  of  the  public  in  this  campaign.  They  are 
too  picturesque  and  fascinating  to  be  forgotten,  and  will  form 
a  permanent  chapter  in  the  curiosities  of  politics.  Of  course 
the  prophets  themselves  did  not  believe  a  word  of  their  pre 
dictions,  but  all  the  same  these  predictions  were  made  to 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY.  24! 

play  a  very  decisive  part  in  defeating  the  Democrats  in  the 
campaigns  of  1872,  1876  and  1880.  During  the  past  twenty 
years  there  has  been  a  constantly  growing  spirit  of  discon 
tent  in  the  ranks  of  Republicanism,  and  hundreds  and  thou 
sands  would  have  enlisted  under  the  banner  of  temperance, 
or  as  members  of  our  various  labor  organizations,  but  they 
were  made  to  believe  that  their  independent  action,  by  weak 
ening  the  Republican  ranks,  would  restore  "the  rebels"  to 
power.  They  were  so  thoroughly  indoctrinated  with  the 
theory  that  one-half  the  people  of  the  United  States  were 
inherently  disloyal  to  the  old  flag  and  incurably  vicious  that 
they  felt  constrained  to  remain  quietly  in  the  party  traces  in 
order  to  save  the  country  from  impending  damnation  and 
ruin.  They  did  not  see  that  a  theory  of  American  politics 
which  makes  one  party  totally  base  and  unworthy  and  the 
other  perfectly  virtuous  and  patriotic,  would,  in  practice, 
prove  utterly  fatal  to  democratic  institutions,  and  that  the 
adoption  of  such  a  theory  by  the  Republican  party  would  so 
afflict  it  with  the  gangrene  of  its  own  self-righteousness  that 
death  would  inevitably  follow.  But  it  worked  admirably  for 
years.  No  delusion  ever  had  a  more  marvelous  success,  or 
more  unscrupulous  managers.  No  political  superstition  was 
ever  more  skillfully  manipulated  by  its  chief  priests.  It  held 
the  Republican  party  solidly  together,  and  thus  completely 
disabled  the  Democrats.  They  could  not  silence  the  clamor 
of  their  enemies  and  refute  their  railing  accusations  un 
less  they  could  regain  power,  and  with  it  the  opportunity  to 
act ;  and  they  could  not  regain  power  because  these  railing 
accusations  were  accepted  as  gospel  truth.  It  was  a  state  of 
things  perfectly  calculated  to  perpetuate  Republican  rule  in 
definitely,  and  suppress  all  criticism  of  its  misdeeds  ;  and  it 
now  seems  a  marvel  that  this  party  devil-worship  was  so 
soon  brought  to  an  end. 

But  four  years  ago  the  Democratic  party,  aided  by  dis 
gusted  Republicans  and  the  providential  interposition  of  Dr. 
Burchard,  was  commissioned  to  take  charge  of  the  national 
government  by  a   majority  of  the   American  people.     And 
16 


242  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

what  has  been  the  result  ?  We  are  now  well  along  in  the 
fourth  year  of  a  Democratic  administration,  and  the  malevo 
lent  and  malignant  power  that  was  to  overthrow  our  institu 
tions  and  blast  the  nation's  life  has  had  the  amplest  opportu 
nity  to  enter  upon  its  baleful  work  and  display  its  infernal 
genius.  But  the  republic  still  lives.  It  has  always  seemed 
to  me  probable  that  if  the  heavens  should  {?&,  the  devil  would 
be  to  pay  ;  but  the  direful  catastrophe  has  not  happened  as 
foretold  by  the  prophets.  The  same  sky  overarches  the  land 
which  looked  down  upon  it  under  Republican  administra 
tions,  and  the  same  solid  earth  is  under  our  feet.  The  na 
tion  was  never  more  prosperous  than  since  the  4th  day  of 
March,  1885.  Our  manufactures  have  not  been  prostrated, 
nor  has  the  currency  been  debased,  nor  the  public  credit  de 
stroyed.  Democratic  states  have  not  been  carved  out  of 
Utah,  Texas,  and  the  Indian  territory.  The  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  has  not  been  reconstructed  in  the  interest 
of  secession,  nor  have  the  acts  of  reconstruction  and  constitu 
tional  amendments  been  pronounced  unconstitutional  and 
void ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  great  tribunal,  although 
overwhelmingly  Republican,  has  recently  pronounced  a  se 
ries  of  opinions,  touching  the  matter  of  centralization  and 
the  proper  autonomy  of  the  states,  which  have  been  re 
ceived  with  great  satisfaction  by  the  states-rights  Democrats 
of  Virginia  and  the  entire  South.  The  nation  has  not  been 
saddled  with  the  Confederate  debt  and  pensions,  nor  have 
the  bounties  and  pensions  of  our  Union  soldiers  and  sailors 
been  repudiated.  The  doctrine  of  secession  has  not  been  re 
asserted,  nor  have  the  freedmen  of  the  South  been  put  back 
into  bondage,  while  no  compensation  has  been  made  or  de 
manded  for  the  slaves  made  free  by  the  rebellion.  Let  me 
add,  that  the  prosperity  of  the  South  within  the  past  three  or 
four  years  is  altogether  unprecedented,  and  that,  in  the  words 
of  Mr.  Curtis,  in  his  late  address  at  Gettysburg,  the  free 
labor  of  that  section  "  pays  taxes  on  property  of  its  own  val 
ued  at  nearly  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  while  for  the  chil 
dren  of  former  slaves  there  are  nearly  twenty  thousand 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY. 

schools,  of  every  degree,  with  an  enrollment  of  more  than  a 
million  pupils." 

I  am  not  indulging  in  sentiment  or  any  phase  of  emo 
tional  politics,  but  dealing  in  the  impregnable  logic  of  facts. 
Time,  it  has  been  well  said,  makes  more  converts  than  rea 
son  ;  and  all  I  ask  of  any  reasonable  man  is  that  he  shall 
look  at  the  South  to-day,  as  it  appears  under  a  Democratic 
administration,  and  contrast  its  condition  with  the  spectacle 
of  "  hell  broke  loose,"  which  for  a  series  of  years  scourged 
its  territory  under  successive  Republican  administrations, 
which  had  at  their  command  the  whole  power  of  the  national 
government.  Gentleman,  can  not  every  thinking  man  see 
that  what  the  South  needs  is  not  sectional  strife  and  a  pro 
longed  antagonism  of  races,  but  cultivated  patience  and 
good-will  in  dealing  with  the  inevitable  conditions  of  prog 
ress?  No  other  policy,  unless  aided  by  miraculous  interven 
tion,  can  work  out  the  regeneration  of  that  section  of  the 
Union,  and  at  the  same  time  insure  the  development  of  its 
wonderful  natural  resources.  Strife  and  disorder  still  pre 
vail  in  some  localities,  and  for  some  time  to  come  may  dis 
turb  the  peace  of  society  ;  but  these  evils  can  not  be  cured  by 
Federal  action.  The  panacea  of  politics  has  been  thoroughly 
tried,  and  has  only  hindered  that  process  of  healthy  growth 
without  which  no  cure  is  possible. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  think  I  have  thus  made  clear  one  of  the 
reasons,  and  a  very  strong  one,  for  my  faith  in  Democratic 
success  in  this  campaign.  The  false  prophets  of  Republican 
ism  have  been  brought  to  shame,  and  the  Democratic  party 
completely  vindicated  by  living  down  their  calumnies.  This 
is  now  so  palpably  true  that  one  of  the  recognized  leaders  of 
the  Republican  party,  Mr.  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  has  recently 
declared  that  "  any  man  who  says  that  the  institutions  of  this 
country  are  in  danger  from  the  election  of  any  candidate,  or 
the  success  of  any  party,  is  talking  pernicious  nonsense." 
Every  intelligent  Republican  knows  that  this  "pernicious 
nonsense  "  has  done  its  work,  and  that  eveYy  one  of  its  evil 
prophecies  has  been  belied.  Cleveland  and  Thurman  not 


244  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

only  enter  the  race  unshackeled,  but  on  the  inside  track, 
while  the  Republican  candidates  are  saddled  with  the  huge 
grist  of  falsehoods  so  long  and  so  potently  employed  in  the 
service  of  their  party  in  the  past. 

I  pass  to  my  second  reason  for  believing  in  a  Democratic 
victory.  The  Democrats  are  making  their  fight  on  a  per 
fectly  defined  and  strong  issue.  I  allude  to  the  tariff.  I  am 
sorry  to  say  that  both  political  parties  have  trifled  with  this 
question  for  twenty  years.  It  was  evaded  as  a  party  issue  in 
the  canvass  of  1868.  In  1872  the  Democratic  platform  re 
manded  it  to  the  congressional  districts  for  settlement,  and  it 
was  not  debated  by  either  party.  In  1876  the  party  platforms 
on  the  question  were  substantially  identical,  differing  only  in 
their  phraseology,  as  they  did  in  1880.  This  was  true  again 
in  1884.  Neither  party  was  prepared  to  confront  the  other 
in  a  square  and  manly  treatment  of  the  question  as  one  of 
principle.  The  better  men  on  both  sides  would  have  ordered 
things  otherwise,  but  they  allowed  themselves  to  be  overruled 
by  the  champions  of  expediency,  whose  policy  should  long 
since  have  been  subordinated  to  the  demands  of  honesty  and 
courage.  Herbert  Spencer  mentions  a  class  of  people  who 
hate  anything  in  the  shape  of  exact  conclusions,  and  are  con 
tinually  trying  to  reconcile  yes  and  no.  He  says  they  would 
scarcely  believe  an  oracle,  if  it  uttered  a  full  length  princi 
ple,  and  that  if  vou  were  to  inquire  of  them  whether  the  earth 
turns  on  its  axis  from  east  to  west,  or  from  west  to  east, 
you  might  almost  expect  the  reply:  k'A  little  of  both,"  or 
'•not  exactly  either."  All  parties  are  afflicted  with  a  halt 
ing  and  unbelieving  element,  which  throws  itself  across  the 
path  of  progress,  and  is  always  ready  to  sacrifice  principle  to 
party  success.  A  writer  of  fiction,  whose  books  abound  in 
sermons,  tells  us  that  "the  hell  that  a  lie  will  keep  a  man 
from  is  doubtless  the  best  place  that  he  can  go  to."  This  is 
as  true  in  politics  as  in  morals.  If  the  Democratic  party  is 
to  be  made  the  mere  annex  of  Republicanism  and  the  instru 
ment  of  monopoly  and  plunder,  it  ought  to  die,  and  the 
sooner  the  better.  A  struggle  between  two  great  national 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY.  245 

parties,  in  which  principle  is  discarded,  is  a  shameful  prosti 
tution  of  the  essential  decency  and  dignity  of  politics. 

But,  at  last,  thanks  to  President  Cleveland,  the  old-fash 
ioned  method  of  dealing  with  the  tariff  question  has  been 
disowned,  and  both  parties  have  faced  the  issue  without  the 
slightest  equivocation.  The  Democratic  platform  demands  a 
reduction  of  the  surplus  by  reducing  taxes.  The  Republican 
platform  demands  the  reduction  of  the  surplus  by  increasing 
taxes.  The  Democratic  platform  insists  that  the  taxes  on 
clothing,  blankets,  tools,  machinery,  lumber,  the  necessaries 
of  life,  and  the  raw  materials  and  implements  of  production 
shall  be  reduced,  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  body  of  the 
people.  The  Republican  platform  squarely  opposes  any 
such  reduction  as  inimical  to  manufacturers,  who  receive  the 
sole  benefit  of  such  taxes  as  a  privileged  class.  The  Demo 
cratic  platform  demands  the  highest  duties  on  luxuries,  in 
cluding  whisky  and  tobacco,  which  in  all  civilized  countries 
are  dealt  with  as  prime  sources  of  revenue.  The  Republi 
can  platform  demands  the  exemption  of  the  luxuries  named 
from  taxation,  which  would  thus  open  the  flood-gates  of 
drunkenness  and  crime  in  order  that  the  great  manufactur 
ing  monopolies  of  the  country  may  grow  rich  through  the 
burdens  heaped  upon  the  masses  of  the  people.  Such  is  the 
contention  between  these  parties  in  the  present  campaign. 
The  question  is  so  simple,  and  its  economical  and  moral 
bearings  are  so  readily  seen,  that  he  who  runs  may  read. 
Herein  is  my  faith  in  Democratic  success.  The  question  is 
sure  to  be  understood  by  the  people.  It  has  not  been  sprung 
too  late  in  the  canvass  for  a  thorough  discussion  of  it  on  its 
merits.  That  discussion  has  already  been  going  on  for 
months,  and  it  will  continue  to  the  end.  It  is  in  the  air. 
The  campaign  is  affording  the  people  a  rare  opportunity  for 
finding  out  the  truth  on  a  long-pending  and  momentous  ques 
tion,  and  should  they  deliberately  embrace  the  mischievous 
folly  embodied  in  the  Republican  party  creed  as  now  revised, 
they  will  deserve  to  grind  in  the  prison-house  of  their  own 
madness  till  their  sufferings  shall  teach  them  the  way  of  de- 


246  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

liverance.     I  have  not  the  slightest  apprehension  that  any 
such  calamity  is  in  store  for  the  country. 

Indeed,  the  Republican  party  seems  to  be  vigorously  em 
ployed  in  the  work  of  self-destruction.  Its  early  and  great 
est  leader,  Abraham  Lincoln,  believed  in  a  government  "  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people  ;"  but  the  party 
to-day  believes  in  a  government  dominated  by  corporations, 
monopolies,  and  class  legislation.  In  its  early  life  the  Re 
publican  party  espoused  the  old  Whig  policy  of  a  tariff  for 
revenue,  with  incidental  protection.  In  later  years  it  practi 
cally  reversed  this  policy  by  favoring  a  tariff  for  protection, 
with  incidental  revenue.  It  now  turns  another  somersault, 
and  repudiates  the  teachings  of  all  the  oracles  of  protection 
in  the  past  by  demanding  a  tariff  for  protection,  with  no  rev 
enue.  The  party  has  hitherto  had  the  reputation  of  being 
more  favorable  to  temperance  than  the  Democratic  party  ; 
but  it  now  openly  declares  that  in  order  to  prevent  the  reduc 
tion  of  existing  duties  on  the  necessaries  of  life,  should  it  be 
come  necessary,  it  will  favor  the  total  repeal  of  our  internal 
revenue  laws,  which  would  probably  reduce  the  price  of 
whisky  to  twenty  cents  per  gallon,  and  reproduce  the  horrid 
saturnalia  of  drunkenness,  lawlessness,  and  domestic  suffer 
ing  which  swept  over  the  nation  in  the  early  part  of  this  cen 
tury.  It  thus  commits  the  double  offense  of  mocking  the  cry 
of  the  people  for  relief  from  the  burdens  imposed  by  the  ex 
isting  war  tariff,  and  making  itself  the  powerful  and  remorse 
less  ally  of  intemperance  and  the  saloons.  Goaded  onward 
by  party  blindness,  and  yet  smarting  under  the  conscious 
ness  of  its  shameless  inconsistency  and  recreancy  to  princi 
ple,  it  seeks  to  wiggle  out  of  its  dilemma  by  comparing  its 
platform  to  that  of  the  Prohibitionists.  But  the  Prohibition 
ists  demand  the  total  banishment  of  whisky  from  the  country 
by  law,  while  the  Republicans  welcome  its  desolating  flood 
and  leave  the  people  wholly  unprotected  against  its  ravages. 
The  Prohibitionists  demand  the  removal  of  duties  on  •*  food, 
clothing,  and  other  comforts  and  necessaries  of  life."  The 
Republicans,  as  I  have  shown,  avow  their  purpose  to  repeal 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY.  247 

the  internal  revenue  taxes  entirely  rather  than  submit  to  the 
slightest  reduction  of  such  duties.  In  fact,  the  attempt  to 
show  any  likeness  between  the  attitude  of  these  parties  on 
the  tariff  question  is  simply  laughable. 

The  further  attempt  is  made  to  silence  the  cry  of  free 
whisky  by  raising  the  idiotic  howl  of  free  trade ;  but  the  Re 
publican  leaders  know  that  the  message  of  the  President, 
which  embodies  the  Democratic  gospel  on  the  tariff,  ex 
pressly  disowns  the  policy  of  free  trade,  and  that  the  reduc 
tion  of  duties  proposed  by  the  Mills  bill  would  leave  them 
higher  than  those  of  the  famous  protective  tariff  of  1842, 
while  it  is  entirely  in  accord  with  the  avowed  policy  of  Ar 
thur,  Garfield,  Grant,  and  other  high  Republican  authorities. 
The  party  managers,  however,  are  not  satisfied  with  their 
scare-crow  of  free  trade.  They  denounce  the  Democratic 
party  as  the  champion  of  British  free  trade.  Relying  upon 
the  ignorance  of  the  people  and  the  potency  of  demagogism, 
they  charge  the  President  with  entering  into  a  secret  alliance 
with  England  for  the  ruin  of  American  manufacturers  and 
the  starvation  of  American  laborers.  But  they  forget  that 
the  high  protective  policy  of  their  party  makes  it  the  natural 
ally  of  the  English  tories,  while  the  reduction  of  duties,  now 
urged  by  the  Democratic  party,  commends  it  to  the  friend 
ship  of  the  English  liberals  and  the  English  common  people, 
who  have  uniformly  been  found  on  the  side  of  the  United 
States.  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  strange  sensitiveness 
to  the  welware  of  American  manufacturers,  and  this  morbid 
jealousy  of  their  rights?  Why  should  Congress  tax  the 
whole  people  for  their  special  advantage?  Are  they  any 
more  deserving  than  our  farmers,  or  any  other  class  of  hon 
est  producers?  Is  there  any  valid  reason  for  singling  them 
out  as  pets  and  favorites  under  a  government  of  equal  laws? 
The  champions  of  our  great  manufacturing  monopolies 
should  remember  that  the  lowering  of  our  tariffs  has  never 
injured  the  workingman  or  the  people,  and  that  our  lowest 
tariffs  in  the  last  fifty  years  have  been  the  most  popular,  al 
though  ruin  was  predicted  as  the  sure  result  of  reduction. 


248  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

It  is  urged  that  high  duties  enhance  the  wages  of  labor ;  but 
every  intelligent  manufacturer  knows  that  the  rate  of  wages 
is  determined  by  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  and  not  by 
the  rate  of  duties.  Manufacturers  are  no  more  inclined  to 
divide  their  profits  among  the  poor  than  other  men.  Protec 
tion  enables  them  to  amass  great  wealth  ;  but  they  hoard  it, 
or  lavish  it  in  ambitious  projects,  instead  of  dividing  it  among 
their  employes.  When  Andrew  Carnegie  made  his  million 
and  a  half  in  a  single  year,  he  did  not  dispense  any  part  of 
it  in  largesses  among  his  toiling  operatives,  but  reduced  their 
wages.  That  was  his  method  of  protecting  them.  In  the 
light  of  such  facts  the  people  are  rapidly  finding  out  the 
truth,  and  the  hollowness  and  selfishness  of  Republicanism 
as  it  writes  down  its  character  and  aims  in  its  latest  confes 
sion  of  faith. 

I  come  now  to  my  third  ground  of  confidence  in  Demo 
cratic  success,  namely,  the  character  of  our  standard-bear 
ers.  Four  years  ago  Grover  Cleveland  appeared  as  a  com 
paratively  new  star  in  the  political  firmament ;  but  he  had  so 
displayed  the  qualities  of  courage,  independence,  integrity 
and  real  leadership  while  Governor  of  New  York  as  to  give 
him  at  once  a  national  reputation,  and  a  high  place  among 
the  foremost  men  of  his  party.  The  people  caught  his  spirit 
and  rallied  to  his  support  with  such  ardor  and  spontaneity 
that  all  rival  candidates  were  sent  to  the  rear,  and  his  nomi 
nation  became  inevitable.  His  later  career  has  been  still 
more  remarkable.  He  has  heen  far  more  thoroughly  tried 
in  the  great  office  of  President,  and  under  the  remorseless 
fire  of  his  political  enemies  ;  but  since  the  day  of  his  inaugu 
ration  he  has  been  steadily  winning  the  admiration  and  love 
of  his  party  and  tre  respect  of  good  men.  His  nomina 
tion  for  a  second  term  became  a  foregone  conclusion  so  early 
in  his  administration,  and  his  qualities  as  a  great  leader  of 
men  revealed  themselves  so  unmistakably  from  time  to  time, 
that  the  claims  of  no  other  candidate  have  been  debated,  or 
even  seriously  thought  of.  Not  one  of  the  famous  men  of 
the  republic  in  its  early  days  was  ever  more  completely  the 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY.  249 

idol  of  his  party.  His  renomination  at  St.  Louis  by  the 
unanimous  vote  of  its  picked  men  from  every  section  of  the 
Union  was  no  surprise  to  the  country,  but  I  believe  was  uni 
versally  anticipated  by  men  of  all  parties.  But  this  unani 
mous  nomination  only  faintly  indicated  the  unexampled  and 
resistless  enthusiasm  of  the  convention.  It  carried  every 
thing  before  it  like  the  tides  of  the  sea,  and  the  delegates  be 
came  the  mere  instruments  of  a  power  which  had  enthralled 
them,  and  given  them  one  heart  and  one  will.  Their  sense 
of  duty  was  an  illumination  ;  and  yet  their  enthusiasm  was 
not  ephemeral,  but  the  final  outburst  of  a  deliberate  and  in 
telligent  estimate  of  the  man  in  the  light  of  his  public  acts 
through  a  series  of  years.  What  other  explanation  is  possi 
ble?  It  will  not  do  to  hold,  with  Senator  Ingalls,  that  Gro- 
ver  Cleveland  is  a  near  relative  of  the  great  family  of  idiots, 
and  that  the  Democratic  party  is  "  a  heap  of  compost."  Nor 
will  it  help  the  matter  to  brand  the  Democrats  as  rebels,  who 
have  found  their  likeness  and  fit  instrument  in  the  President. 
These  interesting  specimens  of  post-mortem  politics  and  po 
litical  lunacy  have  served  their  turn  and  gone  to  their  place. 
Mr.  Chairman,  in  the  canvass  of  1876  I  referred  to  the  ex 
ceptional  power  of  one  strong  man,  thoroughly  in  earnest, 
and  thoroughly  armed  with  the  strength  of  his  convictions. 
k' With  a  fertile  brain,  perfect  courage,  absolute  devotion  to 
duty,  and  a  genius  for  the  work  of  reform,  he  may  scatter 
renovating  ideas,  redeem  a  state  from  misrule,  and  radically 
change  the  face  of  society.  *  *  *  A  really  great  man, 
with  rare  force  of  character,  passionately  wedded  to  his  work, 
and  desperately  resolved  to  submit  to  no  defeat,  might  so  in 
spire  the  people  with  his  own  spirit  of  courage  and  faith  that 
a  revolution  in  the  administration  of  public  affairs  would  be 
the  result."  These  words  were  spoken  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden 
twelve  years  ago,  and  I  have  no  doubt  would  have  been  per 
fectly  justified  in  the  administration  of  that  eminent  states 
man  if  he  had  been  permitted  by  the  party  in  power  to  take 
the  office  to  which  he  had  been  fairly  elected.  But  in  thus 
sketching  the  Democratic  candidate  of  1876  I  anticipated  the 


250  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

character  and  career  of  Grover  Cleveland.  Let  me  illustrate 
the  truth  of  what  I  say  by  facts.  His  annual  message  on  the 
subject  of  the  tariff  awakened  alarm  in  the  ranks  of  a  very 
formidable  body  of  Democrats  and  general  rejoicing  among 
Republicans.  It  was  regarded  as  a  daring  and  perilous  ven 
ture.  The  rugged  issue  he  presented  had  been  evaded  and 
shunned  by  the  cautious  and  prudent  politicians  of  both  par 
ties  since  the  close  of  the  late  war,  while  a  surplus  had  been 
accumulating  in  the  treasury  which  had  threatened  the  utter 
demoralization  of  our  politics,  and  had  been  unnecessarily 
drawn  from  the  pockets  of  the  people  in  the  form  of  taxes 
upon  the  necessaries  of  life.  The  President  fully  realized 
the  situation  and  the  necessity  of  prompt  action,  and  without 
taking  the  counsel  of  timid  leaders  he  launched  his  message. 
He  was  a  candidate  for  renomination  ;  but  in  determining 
the  question  of  public  duty  he  took  no  thought  for  the  mor 
row,  and  was  perfectly  ready  to  face  the  consequences  of  his 
course.  The  people,  however,  love  courage,  and  he  has  so 
multiplied  himself  in  the  ranks  of  his  party,  and  has  been  so 
completely  vindicated  in  the  congressional  debates  upon  the 
question,  that  at  the  end  of  eight  months  the  transformation 
of  his  party  was  accomplished,  as  was  shown  in  the  nearly 
unanimous  Democratic  vote  upon  the  Mills  bill  in  the  House 
of  Representatives. 

Let  me  refer  to  the  matter  of  pensioning  our  soldiers. 
The  most  cherished  memories  of  the  war  for  the  Union  clus 
ter  around  the  men  whose  valor  saved  it,  and  the  widows  and 
orphans  of  those  who  were  slain.  No  subject  of  greater  diffi 
culty  and  delicacy  could  have  been  presented  to  the  Presi 
dent  than  that  of  passing  upon  the  numerous  acts  of  Congress 
providing  for  pensions  which  he  has  been  called  upon  to  con 
sider.  He  could  not  be  unmindful  of  the  strong  sense  of 
gratitude  to  the  nation's  defenders  which  exists  in  every  sec 
tion  of  the  Union,  nor  forget  the  natural  impulse  of  every  pa 
triotic  man  to  favor  the  most  liberal  and  beneficent  legislation 
in  their  behalf.  To  the  average  public  man  it  would  have 
been  far  easier  to  approve  of  indefensible  legislation  under 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY.  251 

the  pressure  of  a  strong  public  opinion  than  to  hazard  the 
damaging  misconstruction  of  his  action  in  guarding  the  pub 
lic  treasury  by  the  disapproval  of  fraudulent  claims.  But 
the  President  has  been  inflexibly  true  to  the  principle  that 
public  office  is  a  public  trust,  and  not  an  outfit  for  the  per 
sonal  advantage  of  the  incumbent,  or  a  machine  to  be  used 
for  his  political  ambition.  He  had  the  courage  to  veto  the 
dependent  pension  bill,  which  would  have  raided  the  treas 
ury,  dishonored  our  soldiers  and  demoralized  our  legislation  ; 
and  here  again  the  people  showed  their  love  of  courage  by 
approving  his  act,  while  many  of  the  leading  Republican 
newspapers  applauded  it.  He  has  sho\vn  the  same  courage 
and  love  of  justice  in  his  vetoes  of  numerous  private  pension 
bills,  while  it  should  be  remembered  to  his  honor  that  under 
his  administration  more  money  has  been  paid  out  in  the  form 
of  pensions  and  bounties  to  our  soldiers  and  sailors  than  was 
ever  before  expended  in  their  behalf  during  an  equal  period. 
The  character  of  the  President  invites  further  illustration 
in  his  action  touching  the  reform  of  the  civil  service.  There 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  his  perfect  good  faith  in  espousing  this 
reform,  and  there  is  just  as  little  doubt  that  he  underrated 
the  character  and  potency  of  the  opposition  he  would  have 
to  encounter.  What  we  call  the  spoils  system  is  rooted  in 
the  policy  and  traditions  of  all  parties  for  more  than  fifty 
years.  It  may  almost  be  called  an  institution,  and  its  over 
throw  must  necessarily  be  the  work  of  time  and  courageous 
endeavor.  But  the  President  bravely  undertook  it.  Early 
in  his  administration  he  set  about  the  work  of  taking  the  New 
York  postoffice  out  of  party  politics,  so  that  its  affairs  might 
be  managed  on  business  principles,  and  in  the  interest  of  the 
people.  He  has  done  very  much  to  redeem  the  New  York 
custom-house  from  the  great  and  crying  evils  which  have 
disgraced  its  management  during  previous  administrations. 
He  has  postponed  the  removal  of  the  great  body  of  Repub 
lican  office-holders  till  the  end  of  their  term  of  service.  He 
has  repeatedly  favored  the  extension  of  the  civil  service  rules 
in  furtherance  of  the  great  ends  contemplated  by  the  reform, 


252  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

and  as  a  rule  his  appointments  have  been  remarkably  mer 
itorious  ;  while  he  has  set  his  face  against  political  corrup 
tion,  and  kept  the  executive  mansion  free  from  the  scandals 
that  have  disgraced  so  many  previous  administrations.  He 
has,  it  is  true,  disappointed  the  hopes  of  some  of  the  zealous 
friends  of  this  reform,  and  has  evidently  not  accomplished 
all  that  was  desired  and  expected  ;  but  he  has  done  far  more 
than  any  of  his  predecessors  since  the  introduction  of  the 
spoils  system,  and  placed  the  movement  on  such  a  footing 
that  no  retreat  is  now  possible.  He  is  bitterly  assailed  by 
the  Republican  leaders  for  not  fully  living  up  to  his  promises  ; 
but  the  public  wall  not  fail  to  notice  that  it  is  not  the  violation 
of  the  President's  promises  that  offends  these  leaders,  but 
the  fact  that  he  made  them.  Leading  Republican  senators 
have  openly  declared  that  if  he  had  made  a  "clean  sweep1' 
of  the  offices,  they  would  have  had  no  quarrel  with  his  pol 
icy.  In  this  they  but  echo  the  general  sense  of  the  partv, 
which  four  years  ago  nominated  a  man  for  the  Presidency 
whose  political  life  had  belied  every  principle  of  civil  service 
reform,  and  whose  renomination  this  year  was  the  fervent  wish 
of  an  overwhelming  majority  of  its  members.  When  we  re 
member,  that,  with  the  slight  exception  of  President  Arthur's 
action  touching  federal  appointments,  the  record  of  the  Re 
publican  party  on  this  question  for  twenty  years  has  been  a 
shameless  exhibition  of  official  corruption  and  political  pros 
titution,  the  hypocrisy  of  its  present  leaders  in  assailing  the 
President  is  readily  seen.  They  despise  him  in  the  exact 
measure  of  their  unfaithfulness.  I  ought  to  add  thai  many 
of  these  assaults  emanate  from  Republican  office  holders 
who  owe  their  retention  in  their  places  to  the  impartial  en 
forcement  of  the  civil  service  rules,  while  they  lack  the  de 
cency  to  keep  silent.  The  President,  in  the  meantime,  holds 
on  along  the  path  of  his  pledges.  He  takes  no  step  back 
ward,  but  commends  the  good  wrork  of  the  faithful  commis 
sioners  chosen  by  himself  for  its  prosecution,  and  shows  his 
determination  to  stand  by  them.  He  can  not  work  miracles, 
but  he  will  not  betray  the  cause  to  its  enemies,  nor  withhold 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY.  253 

from  it  his  continued  and  earnest  support  to  the  end.  His 
enemies  know  this,  and  their  malignant  warfare  against  him 
would  instantly  cease  if  he  'should  really  turn  his  back  upon 
his  professions. 

I  need  not  multiply  these  illustrations  of  the  President's 
strong  personality,  which  has  so  impressed  the  country,  and 
so  naturally  suggests  the  contrast  between  him  and  his  com 
petitor.  General  Harrison  is  certainly  a  respectable  candi 
date.  His  private  life  is  without  a  stain,  and,  I  believe,  his 
personal  and  political  integrity  is  undoubted.  I  am  quite 
sure  he  has  written  no  letters  which  he  has  any  occasion  to 
call  on  his  friends  to  'k  burn."  He  is  a  very  good  lawyer  and 
an  intense  partisan  who  is  not  wanting  in  pugnacity.  His 
military  career  bears  witness  to  his  patriotism  and  courage, 
but  it  offers  no  striking  situations.  His  service  in  the  Senate 
for  six  years  supplies  no  satisfactory  proof  of  his  statesman 
ship,  and  leaves  him  at  a  disadvantage  when  compared  with 
rival  leaders  who  have  had  the  experience  and  training  of  an 
extended  public  career.  While  in  the  Senate  he  vigorously 
assailed  the  President  on  the  score  of  his  inconsistency  in 
dealing  with  the  civil  service,  but  his  attack  fairly  implied 
that  he  had  no  fault  to  find  with  the  spoils  system,  while  he 
was  exceedingly  active  in  his  endeavor  to  secure  his  full  share 
of  federal  appointments.  He  voted  for  the  Blair  educational 
bill,  which  a  number  of  the  better  men  in  his  party  wisely  op 
posed  as  a  measure  unduly  favoring  the  centralization  of  fed 
eral  power.  He  voted  for  the  dependent  pension  bill,  which 
the  President  vetoed  with  the  general  approval  of  the  people, 
while  he  introduced  several  private  pension  bills  which  could 
not  be  defended.  He  voted  for  the  Hennepin  canal  scheme, 
which  some  of  the  leading  Republican  papers  justly  de 
nounced  at  the  time  as  a  most  gigantic  and  unqualified  piece 
of  jobbery.  He  has  avowed  himself  in  favor  of  steamship 
subsidies,  and  he  is,  of  course,  the  representative  of  the  atro 
cious  tariff  policy  of  his  party,  which  is  now  the  vital  issue  of 
the  canvass,  and  has  suddenly  become  the  great  test  of  Re 
publican  orthodoxy. 


254  SELECTED    SPEECHES. 

Gentlemen,  can  such  a  man  be  trusted  as  a  leader  in  the 
reformation  of  great  and  hoary  abuses  ?  Is  he  strong  enough 
to  lift  his  party  out  of  the  mire  of  general  demoralization  in 
which  it  has  landed,  and  restore  it  to  the  integrity  of  its 
earlier  days?  Is  he  able  to  work  out  the  regeneration  and 
purification  of  a  party  already  dead  in  its  trespasses  and  sins? 
To  ask  these  questions  is  to  answer  them.  General  Har 
rison,  if  elected,  will  faithfully  carry  out  the  principles  of  his 
party  as  defined  in  its  platform.  He  will  countenance  no  re 
volt,  or  even  protest,  against  its  supreme  authority.  He  will 
do  nothing  to  check  the  current  of  evil  which  has  completely 
carried  it  away  from  its  traditions,  and  made  it  the  servant  of 
corporations,  monopolies  and  special  interests.  He  lacks 
both  the  power  and  the  will  to  rise  above  it,  while  his  politi 
cal  career  has  revealed  no  sign  of  discontent  with  the  evil 
tendencies  and  growing  abuses  which  have  made  it  what  it 
is.  Of  all  the  prominent  leaders  of  his  party  he  is  probably 
least  inclined  to  listen  to  the  cry  of  reform. 

Of  the  candidates  for  Vice-President  I  need  say  but  little. 
Judge  Thurman  is  known  to  the  whole  country  as  a  man  of 
great  ability  and  large  experience  in  public  affairs.  His 
fidelity  to  the  people  has  been  splendidly  illustrated  in  his 
successful  fight  against  the  domination  of  great  railway  cor 
porations,  and  his  name  is  the  synonym  of  integrity,  courage 
and  devotion  to  his  country.  Of  the  republican  candidate  it 
is  only  necessary  to  say  that  he  is  a  wealthy  New  York 
banker,  whose  statesmanship  is  an  unknown  quantity,  and 
who  never  would  have  been  dreamed  of  for  the  second  office 
in  the  gift  of  the  people  but  for  the  money  he  is  able  to 
control. 

Gentlemen,  in  approaching  the  conclusion  of  what  I  have 
to  say,  I  must  refer  to  a  still  further  ground  of  encourage 
ment.  I  find  it  in  the  action  and  attitude  of  the  Democratic 
and  Republican  parties  touching  the  land  question,  and  I  am 
drawn  to  this  topic  by  the  fact  that  I  am  somewhat  familiar 
with  it,  while  my  official  work  in  New  Mexico  for  the  past 
three  years  seems  to  make  it  appropriate. 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY.  255 

The  Republican  party  prides  itself  upon  its  early  espousal 
of  the  homestead  policy,  which  it  borrowed,  as  it  did  its  other 
principles,  from  the  old  Free-soil  party  of  1848.  It  also 
claims  the  glory  of  having  enacted  the  homestead  law  of 
1862.  Let  it  be  duly  honored  for  its  good  work;  but.  the 
country  will  not  forget  that,  simultaneously  with  the  enact 
ment  of  this  law,  and  as  if  intending  to  nullify  its  operations, 
this  same  Republican  party  set  on  foot  a  system  of  extrava 
gant  and  unguarded  land  grants  to  railroad  corporations, 
which  surrendered  to  their  purposes  an  aggregate  area  of  the 
public  domain  about  equal  to  the  entire  territory  of  the  thir 
teen  original  colonies  of  the  Union.  I  admit  that  there  was 
some  excuse  for  this  legislation,  and  that  it  should  have  the 
benefit  of  extenuating  facts.  We  were  grappling  with  the 
difficult  problems  of  a  great  war,  and  this  naturally  opened 
the  way  for  hasty  legislation  on  other  questions.  The  de 
mand  for  great  highways  to  the  Pacific  was  deemed  impera 
tive,  while  their  construction  was  believed  to  be  unattainable 
without  the  help  of  the  public  lands.  Moreover,  the  value 
of  the  lands  granted  was  not  then  understood  as  it  is  to-day, 
nor  did  any  one  then  foresee  the  rapid  settlement  and  devel 
opment  of  our  western  states  and  territories  through  which 
the  building  of  these  roads  would  become  a  work  of  practical 
accomplishment  without  the  aid  of  the  government.  I  add, 
that  I  believe  it  was  universally  understood  that  the  lands 
would  be  promptly  restored  to  the  public  domain  on  the  fail 
ure  of  the  companies  to  comply  with  the  conditions  of  the 
grants.  If  this  had  been  done,  the  mischief  inflicted  upon 
the  country  would  have  been  comparatively  trifling.  The 
recreancy  of  the  Republican  party  was  not  so  much  in  mak 
ing  the  grants  as  in  declining  to  enforce  their  forfeiture  and 
succumbing  to  corporate  dictation.  If  Congress  had  done 
its  duty,  the  great  body  of  lands  given  away  would  long  since 
have  been  restored  to  the  public  domain  ;  but  the  roads  were 
allowed  to  proceed  in  their  laggard  way,  and  hold  back  from 
settlement  and  tillage  during  many  years  vast  areas  of  land 
which  had  never  been  earned,  while  it  is  well  known  to  every 
lawyer  who  practices  in  the  federal  courts,  that  their  rulings 


256  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

in  controversies  arising  under  these  grants  have  sometimes 
been  colored  by  railway  influence.  Attempts  were  made  in 
Congress  at  various  times  to  declare  these  grants  forfeited,  so 
that  the  lands  might  be  restored  to  the  people,  but  they  were 
baffled  by  Republican  opposition.  This  happened  year  after 
year,  while  the  railway  lobby  played  its  strong  game  in 
Washington,  and  Congress  became  the  servant  of  the  corpo 
rations  it  had  created  and  richly  endowed.  More  than  one 
hundred  millions  of  acres  of  the  public  domain  were  thus 
illegally  held  in  the  clutches  of  these  corporations,  while  an 
additional  area  almost  as  large  was  withheld  from  the  people 
under  executive  orders,  covering  the  even-numbered  sections 
withdrawn  pending  the  survey  of  the  odd-numbered  ones, 
and  indemnity  lands  unwarrantably  reserved.  The  truth  is, 
that  for  more  than  twenty  years  prior  to  the  inauguration  of 
Grover  Cleveland  the  general  land  office,  to  a  fearful  extent, 
was  a  mere  bureau  in  the  service  of  the  railwavs,  as  I  have 
demonstrated  in  a  carefully  prepared  magazine  article  pub 
lished  a  few  years  ago. 

But  Congress,  at  last,  under  the  pressure  of  public  opin 
ion,  was  constrained  to  act.  Bills  were  passed  in  the  Forty- 
eighth  Congress  declaring  forfeited  19,610,880  acres,  and  in 
the  Forty-ninth  Congress  30,811,360  acres,  making  a  total  of 
50,482,247  acres.  These  measures  were  initiated  by  Demo 
crats,  and  the  opposition  to  them  came  from  Republicans. 
Since  Cleveland's  inauguration  52,437,373  acres  improperly 
reserved  have  been  restored  to  the  public  domain  by  executive 
action,  while  the  present  House  of  Representatives  has  passed 
;i  bill  declaring  forfeited  53,735,562  acres,  which  bill,  it  is 
generally  understood,  will  fail  in  the  Republican  Senate.  If 
to  these  sums  we  add  10,794,542  acres  already  recommended 
for  recovery,  in  cases  now  under  consideration  in  the  gen 
eral  land  office  and  the  department  of  justice,  we  shall  have 
an  aggregate  of  167,459,717  acres.  This  Democratic  record 
is  not  complete  without  the  further  statement  that  the  House 
of  Representatives  has  passed  a  bill  repealing  the  preemp 
tion  law,  and  so  revising  our  land  laws  generally  as  to  set 


THE  AUGURIES    OF  VICTORY.  257 

apart  for  actual  settlement  .the  whole  of  our  remaining  public 
domain  which  is  fit  for  cultivation.  This  measure,  it  is  much 
to  be  regretted,  will  in  all  probability  be  defeated  in  the 
Senate,  which  has  repeatedly  refused  to  concur  in  its  essen 
tial  provisions. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  think  I  am  justified  in  saying  that  this 
wholesale  restitution  to  the  people  of  these  millions  of  stolen 
lands  under  past  legislation  is  as  honorable  to  the  Democratic 
party  as  it  is  damaging  to  its  opponent.  It  certainly  fur 
nishes  no  reason  for  turning  out  the  present  administration 
and  restoring  the  cast-off  dispensation  of  public  plunder 
which  has  so  long  scourged  the  country. 

Allow  me  to  refer  to  a  more  particular  and  localized  illus 
tration  of  Republican  devotion  to  the  rights  of  settlers. 
Naturalists  tell  us  that  with  the  aid  of  a  single  joint  of  an 
animal  they  can  determine  its  entire  structure.  Let  me  see 
if  I  can  not  give  you  a  pretty  clear  apprehension  of  the  na 
ture  and  make-up  of  latter-day  Republicanism  by  examining 
the  joint  of  it  which  is  supplied  by  New  Mexico. 

When  the  United  States  acquired  this  territory  it  was  in- 
cumbered  by  old  Spanish  and  Mexican  land  grants  cover 
ing  a  claimed  area  of  about  fifteen  million  acres.  The  gov 
ernment  bound  itself  by  treaty  to  respect  the  title  to  these 
grants,  so  far  as  found  valid  under  the  laws  of  Spain  and 
Mexico  ;  and,  by  act  of  Congress  of  July  22,  1854, tne  office 
of  Surveyor-General  for  the  territory  was  created,  and  it  be 
came  his  duty  to  ascertain  "  the  origin,  nature,  character  and 
extent"  of  these  claims,  and  make  full  report  of  his  opinion 
thereon  for  the  final  action  of  Congress.  This  armed  him 
with  very  large  and  responsible  powers,  for  no  court  in  the 
Union  had  any  authority  to  review  his  opinions,  which  were 
final  and  absolute,  subject  only  to  the  ultimate  supervision  of 
Congress.  The  matter  to  which  I  wish  to  direct  your  spe 
cial  attention  is  the  action  of  the  government  under  this  leg 
islation,  and  I  shall  speak  from  personal  and  official  knowl 
edge.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  this  action  occurred  under 
Republican  rule,  and  the  aggregate  of  the  public  lands  lost 
17 


258  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

to  the  government  by  its  recognition  of  fraudulent  titles  and 
unwarranted  surveys  exceeds  ten  million  acres.  The  Sur 
veyors-General  were  the  mere  instruments  of  grant  claim 
ants,  who  had  purchased  their  claims  at  a  low  rate  for  specu 
lative  purposes  ;  and  having  secured  favorable  reports  upon 
them  and  surveys  enormously  stretched,  they  lobbied  the 
cases  through  Congress,  while  they  also  made  the  general 
land  office  their  servant.  Their  influence  over  New  Mexico 
has  been  absolutely  disastrous,  and  I  believe  it  would  be  no 
extravagance  to  say  that  the  evil  they  have  wrought  in  the 
territory  could  scarcely  have  been  exceeded  by  the  three 
fold  scourge  of  war,  pestilence  and  famine. 

Their  most  shocking  performances  occurred  under  the 
administrations  of  Grant  and  Hayes  ;  and,  by  way  of  exam 
ple,  I  refer  you  to  the  case  of  the  Una  de  Gato  grant,  which 
was  claimed  by  Stephen  W.  Dorsey.  Its  area  was  six  hun 
dred  thousand  acres,  a  very  large  part  of  which  is  the  finest 
land  in  New  Mexico.  Under  a  favorable  opinion  of  the 
Surveyor-General  as  to  its  validity  it  was  reserved  from  set 
tlement  under  the  act  of  Congress  of  1854,  and  remains  so 
reserved  to-day.  In  the  year  1877  investigations  were  set 
on  foot  respecting  the  validity  of  this  grant,  which  were  ex 
ceedingly  offensive  to  Mr.  Dorsey,  and  resulted  in  completely 
demonstrating  its  forgery  early  in  the  year  1879.  He  there- 
upon  determined  to  appropriate  the  lands  under  the  home 
stead  and  preemption  laws.  But  this  he  could  not  legally  do. 
One  Survey  or- General  had  declared  the  grant  valid,  and 
another  had  pronounced  it  a  forgery,  while  Congress  alone 
could  determine  the  question,  and  the  land  was  absolutely 
reserved  in  the  meantime.  In  this  dilemma  the  Commis 
sioner  of  the  General  Land  Office,  who  was  touched  by  Mr. 
Dorsey 's  misfortune,  ordered  the  land  to  be  surveyed  and 
opened  to  settlement,  although  he  knew  he  had  no  power  to 
do  so.  Mr.  Dorsey,  who  was  already  in  possession  of  many 
thousands  of  acres  of  the  choicest  lands  in  the  tract,  at  once 
sent  out  his  squads  of  henchmen,  who,  by  perjury  and  sub 
ornation  of  perjury,  availed  themselves  of  the  forms  of  the 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY.  259 

preemption  and  homestead  laws  in  acquiring  pretended  titles, 
which  were  conveyed  to  him  in  pursuance  of  arrangements 
previously  agreed  upon.  No  record  of  this  unauthorized 
action  of  the  Commissioner  is  now  to  be  found  in  the  land 
office.  What  was  done  was  done  sneakingly  and  in  the 
dark,  and  nothing  is  known  of  the  transaction  but  the  fact 
of  its  occurrence,  and  the  intimate  relations  then  existing 
between  Mr.  Dorsey  and  the  Commissioner  and  his  chief  of 
surveys.  Of  course,  he  and  his  associates  in  this  business 
have  no  title  to  the  lands  thus  acquired,  and  their  entries 
should  be  canceled,  not  only  because  the  land  was  reserved 
from  sale  by  act  of  Congress,  but  because  the  entries  were 
fraudulently  made,  as  has  been  already  shown  in  many  cases 
by  investigations  not  yet  completed. 

These  are  remarkable  facts,  but  there  is  no  mystery  about 
them.  Mr.  Dorsey  was  then  a  power  in  Republican  politics. 
He  had  neared  the  summit  of  his  remarkable  ascendency.  It 
was  in  the  following  year,  1880,  that  his  genius,  as  secretary 
of  the  Republican  national  committee,  lighted  the  way  to  a 
national  victory  for  his  party,  for  which  he  was  subsequently 
banqueted  and  lionized  as  "the  Napoleon  who  carried  Indi 
ana."  When  such  a  man  wanted  the  Republican  officials  of 
the  land  department  to  violate  the  law  and  their  oath  of  office 
to  enable  him  to  appropriate  a  large  body  of  public  lands  in 
furtherance  of  his  rapacity,  they  did  not  dare  say  no,  and  the 
robbery  was  accomplished.  He  well  knew,  and  so  did  the 
Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office  and  the  Secretary  of 
the  Interior,  that  this  action  was  totally  unauthorized,  and 
that  the  lands  thus  acquired  by  him  and  his  allies,  under  an 
illegal  order,  rightfully  belonged  to  the  United  States.  In 
these  statements  I  am  supported  by  the  records  of  the  gov-« 
ernment,  and  no  lawyer  will  attempt  to  controvert  them. 

This  is  but  one  case,  among  many,  of  land  stealing  in 
New  Mexico  under  Republican  rule.  If  that  rule  had  con 
tinued  four  years  longer,  the  fortunes  of  the  territory  would 
have  been  still  more  completely  handed  over  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  Dorsey,  Elkins  and  their  confederates,  and  the 


2OO  SELECTED  SPEECHES. 

work  of  reform  would  have  been  postponed  to  a  day  far  in 
the  distance,  or  made  absolutely  impossible.  But  a  good  be 
ginning  has  been  made  under  this  administration.  Of  the 
10,000,000  acres  already  stolen,  probably  one-half  can  be  re 
claimed  as  the  result  of  disclosures  brought  to  light,  and 
measures  already  instituted  through  Democratic  officials,  and 
nothing  could  more  completely  demonstrate  the  necessity  of 
continuing  the  present  administration  in  power  than  the  facts 
I  have  presented. 

Gentleman,  I  take  no  pleasure  in  depicting  the  recreancy 
of  a  great  historic  party  in  the  day  of  its  decline.  I  was 
present  at  its  birth,  and  saw  it  grow  up  to  the  full  stature  of 
manhood  ;  and  I  was  with  it  and  of  it  in  the  grand  part  it 
played  in  suppressing  the  slave-holders'  rebellion  and  estab 
lishing  liberty  throughout  the  land  by  irrepealable  law.  In 
the  beginning  it  espoused  the  rights  of  the  states,  as  well  as 
the  union  of  the  states.  It  resolved  to  rescue  our  national 
territories  from  the  polluting  tread  of  slavery,  and  it  demand 
ed  the  freedom  of  the  public  lands  for  actual  settlers  in  lim 
ited  homesteads.  It  made  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
the  basis  of  its  policy,  and  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word  it 
was  the  party  of  the  people.  In  its  first  successful  battle 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  its  great  captain,  who  fell  under  the 
hand  of  his  assassin  before  his  party  had  sinned  away  its 
moral  heritage.  Its  founders  and  fathers  were  Seward, 
Chase  and  Sumner,  who  were  the  real  heroes  of  its  princi 
ples,  and  they  walked  out  of  it  when  it  yielded  to  a  demoral 
ized  leadership  and  turned  away  from  the  rectitude  of  its 
youth.  These  great  men  never  returned  to  its  fold,  and 
thenceforward  till  the  meeting  of  its  late  national  convention 
at  Chicago  it  has  steadily  drifted,  step  by  step  and  year  by 
year,  from  its  early  moorings,  and  lost  the  inspiration  and 
heroism  that  made  its  beginning  so  glorious.  That  conven 
tion  was  largely  controlled  by  gamblers  in  public  office,  mo 
nopolists  who  had  grown  rich  by  the  legalized  robberies  of 
our  tariff  system,  and  the  agents  of  great  railway  corpora 
tions.  It  was  called  to  order  by  a  great  manufacturer  whose 


THE  AUGURIES  OF  VICTORY.  26l 

interests  are  largely  involved  in  protective  duties,  and  its 
temporary  chairman  was  an  attorney  for  a  great  Pacific  rail 
way.  One  of  the  Presidential  candidates  was  a  millionaire, 
who  has  grown  rich  by  the  tariff  on  lumber,  and  another  was 
the  attorney  and  representative  of  the  Vanderbilts  and  their 
system  of  railways.  Perhaps  the  most  active  and  conspicu 
ous,  if  not  the  most  influential,  leader  in  the  convention  was 
Stephen  B.  Elkins,  who  was  formidably  reenforced  by  such 
moral  auxiliaries  as  Mahone  of  Virginia,  Flannagan  of  Texas, 
and  Chalmers  of  Mississippi. 

If  anything  was  wanting  to  show  the  complete  apostacy 
of  the  party  and  its  absolute  surrender  to  the  domination  of 
special  interests  and  personal  greed,  it  was  supplied  by  its 
declaration  in  favor  of  cursing  the  land  with  free  whisky  as 
a  means  of  perpetuating  high  taxes  on  the  necessaries  of  life. 
This  is  its  epitaph,  fitly  written  by  itself;  and  the  honest  men 
in  its  ranks  who  still  vainly  hope  to  redeem  it  from  dishonor 
will  be  obliged  to  take  their  places  in  another  organization, 
and  under  leaders  more  worthy  to  be  followed. 


CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS, 


REPLY  TO  SENATOR  HOWE. 


To  the  Editor  of  the  "  World:  " 

SIR — Perhaps  I  ought  briefly  to  notice  the  article  of  Sen 
ator  Howe,  of  Wisconsin,  in  the  last  number  of  the  North 
American  Review,  entitled  "Is  the  Republican  Party  in  its 
Death  Struggle  ?  "  This  is  the  text  he  chooses,  but,  strangely 
enough,  the  sermon  which  follows  it  fails  to  answer  the  ques 
tion.  He  probably  remembered  that  in  his  late  speech  in  the 
Senate  he  had  answered  it  in  the  affirmative,  but  now,  in  ar 
raigning  me  as  an  assassin  of  his  party,  he  should  have  re 
membered,  also,  that  in  that  same  speech  he  charged  its  ruin 
upon  its  own  trusted  leaders. 

The  senator,  for  some  unaccountable  reason,  deals  with 
my  article  as  a  studied  defense  of  the  Democratic  party.  I 
entered  upon  no  such  task.  My  subject  neither  involved  nor 
required  it.  My  purpose  was  to  show  the  readiness  of  the 
Republican  leaders,  after  the  late  war,  to  condone  the  vices 
and  profligacies  which  began  to  assume  the  name  of  Republi 
canism  on  the  plea  that  the  Democrats  could  not  be  trusted, 
and  that  the  country  would  perish  in  their  hands.  I  insisted 
that  "  the  philosophy  which  regards  a  particular  party  as  of 
divine  appointment  and  necessary  to  salvation  would  place 
the  administration  of  the  government  in  its  hands  forever," 
and  that  "  while  the  corrupt  and  venal  elements  of  society 
would  certainly  gravitate  into  it  through  its  prolonged  hold 
on  power,  the  good  men  in  its  ranks,  instead  of  joining  the 
other  side  or  becoming  the  nucleus  of  a  new  party,  would  be 
obliged  to  keep  their  places  and  quietly  submit  to  the  un 
hindered  rule  of  roguery  and  plunder,  lest  the  opposite  party 
should  gain  power  and  ruin  the  country."  This  was  my 
position  ;  but  instead  of  meeting  the  logic  by  which  I  sup 
ported  it  and  exposed  this  party  devil-worship,  the  senator 


266  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

wastes  his  time  and  strength  in  assailing  the  Democrats.  In 
declining  to  meet  the  issue  I  tendered  him,  he  confesses  his 
inability  to  do  so. 

The  senator  surprises  the  public  by  denying  that  the  Re 
publican  party  favored  the  abolition  of  slavery  upon  compul 
sion.  Every  man  who  is  even  superficially  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  the  first  two  years  of  the  war  knows  that  I  am 
right.  I  do  not  speak  of  the  abolition  element  in  the  party, 
but  of  the  great  body  of  its  members,  when  I  say  that  it  tried 
with  all  its  might  to  save  the  Union  and  save  slavery  with  it. 
The  very  letter  the  senator  quotes  from  Mr.  Lincoln  to  Hor 
ace  Greeley  proves  the  truth  of  the  statement  he  controverts, 
while  the  proclamation  of  emancipation  furnishes  official  evi 
dence  that  the  great  act  was  done  "  as  a  military  necessity." 
What  the  senator  means  by  denying  a  statement  which  is  as 
notoriously  true  as  any  fact  connected  with  the  war,  I  am  at 
a  loss  to  divine  ;  but  I  rather  think  he  needs  a  liberal  diet 
of  fish. 

The  senator  is  equally  entertaining  and  picturesque  in  his 
attempted  defense  of  his  party.  From  my  arraignment  for 
its  startling  misdeeds  and  crimes  during  the  past  eight  or 
nine  years,  covering  some  ten  pages,  and  embodying  undis 
puted  or  well  authenticated  facts,  he  picks  out  some  half- 
dozen  items  and  pours  himself  forth  upon  them  in  all  the 
force  of  his  senatorial  feebleness.  He  says  Mr.  Flannegan 
was  not  at  the  head  of  the  Committee  on  Education  and  La 
bor,  and  that  Sumner  was  not  placed  on  it.  The  senator 
ought  to  know,  having  been  in  the  Senate  at  the  time,  but  he 
does  not.  The  congressional  directory,  to  which  he  invites 
my  attention,  flatly  contradicts  him.  I  think  he  should  have 
been  more  "painstaking."  In  my  article  I  mentioned 
Sharpe,  a  brother-in-law  of  the  President,  as  having  been 
Surveyor  of  the  Port  of  New  York,  in  violation  of  the  civil 
service  rules.  The  senator,  instead  of  meeting  my  accusa 
tion,  denies  that  this  particular  Sharpe  is  the  President's 
brother-in-law.  I  believe  he  is  right,  and  that  the  Sharpe 
who  was  a  brother-in-law  was  Marshal  of  the  District  of  Co- 


REPLY  TO  SENATOR  HOWE.  267 

lumbia  ;  but  the  point  is  wholly  immaterial,  and  my  charge 
stands  uncontradicted.  I  also  mentioned  that  one  Cramer, 
another  brother-in-law,  disgraced  our  diplomatic  service  dur 
ing  General  Grant's  first  administration,  and  was  afterwards 
made  naval  officer  at  New  Orleans.  The  senator  says  he 
was  not  made  a  naval  officer,  but  is  still  in  the  foreign  service 
at  Copenhagen.  If  so,  he  is  thus  disgracing  the  government 
abroad  instead  of  at  home,  and  the  senator  seems  to  think 
this  defense  complete.  Does  he  think  his  readers  are  all 
fools,  or  is  he  mentally  afflicted  himself? 

The  senator  denies  that  Sumner  was  driven  from  the 
chairmanship  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  on  ac 
count  of  his  opposition  to  the  Santo  Domingo  job  ;  and  then, 
in  effect,  admits  it  by  saying  that  "  if  a  representative  body 
really  favors  the  adoption  of  a  public  measure  it  is  difficult 
to  say  why  it  should  place  at  the  head  of  a  committee  any 
man  whose  employment  there  would  endanger  the  success 
of  the  measure."  He  then  makes  another  wriggle  by  ridi 
culing  the  idea  that  the  Senate  which  rejected  the  treaty 
would  have  deposed  Sumner  for  opposing  it — sneakingly 
keeping  back  the  fact  that  Sumner's  magnificent  fight  against 
it  compelled  a  recreant  Senate  to  abandon  it.  If  the  senator 
knows  any  fact  connected  with  American  politics  he  knows, 
as  does  the  public,  that  my  statement  as  to  the  cause  of  Mr. 
Sumner's  removal  is  true  ;  but  he  seems  so  charmingly  inno 
cent  of  a  conscience  that  he  finds  a  real  pleasure  in  denying 
it,  although  he  must  know  the  public  will  not  believe  him. 

Equally  remarkable  are  the  senator's  statements  and  de 
nials  respecting  the  New  York  custom-house  investigations  in 
1872,  his  wholesale  defense  of  political  corruption  in  that  in 
stitution,  and  the  transparent  pettifogging  by  which  he  seeks 
to  defend  General  Grant's  administration  in  dealing  with  the 
Chorpenning  claim  and  the  misdeeds  of  General  Babcock. 
I  need  not  dwell  upon  these  performances  ;  nor  can  it  be  nec 
essary  to  notice  his  statement  that  I  deserted  the  Republican 
party  on  account  of  my  retirement  from  Congress.  Any  pol 
itician  in  Indiana  of  moderate  intelligence  could  have  told 


268  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

him  he  was  bearing  false  witness,  and  that  the  prizes  of  poli 
tics  were  within  my  reach  when  my  connection  with  the 
party  was  severed. 

I  fear  the  senator  is  unhappy.  Notwithstanding  his  un 
christian  temper  towards  the  Greeley  Republicans,  he  has 
himself  become  a  factionest  and  a  disorganize!*  in  his  party. 
He  brands  the  President  he  helped  elect  as  an  usurper,  or 
else  the  accomplice  of  one  in  the  person  of  Governor 
Nicholls.  He  lavishes  upon  Secretary  Schurz  his  sincerest 
and  most  heart-felt  abuse  and  defamation.  He  deals  with 
such  men  as  Sumner,  Chase,  Seward  and  Greeley  as  apos 
tates  and  traitors,  while  defending  the  worst  of  the  thieves 
who  held  office  under  General' Grant ;  and  yet  he  declares 
in  the  close  of  his  article,  with  a  sanctimonious  whine,  that 
"  criticism  and  calumny  are  two  very  different  agents/'  and 
that  "  the  example  is  evil  and  the  effort  only  pernicious  when 
innocent  men  are  pilloried  in  the  permanent  literature  of  the 
country  as  if  they  were  guilty."  His  party  servitude  of  eigh 
teen  years  in  the  Senate  has  so  palsied  his  intellect  and 
pauperized  his  soul  that  he  coolly  refers  to  the  administration 
of  Grant  in  proof  of  the  honesty  of  his  party.  And  in  the 
travail  of  his  spirit  the  senator  complains  that  I  talk  too 
much.  He  is  not  singular  in  this  opinion.  It  was  enter 
tained  by  all  the  leaders  ofGrantismin  1872,  and  they  were  fully 
confirmed  in  it  in  1876.  It  is  not  very  common  for  criminals 
to  enjoy  the  exposure  of  their  crimes.  I  did  not  expect  the 
men  I  impaled  in  the  pages  of  the  North  American  would  be 
delighted  by  the  entertainment.  It  is  probable  that  Benedict 
Arnold,  to  whom  the  senator  politely  compares  me,  and  the 
more  "  sensitive  "  class  of  criminals  to  whom  he  alludes,  who 
"  laid  hold  upon  their  own  lives/'  found  as  little  comfort  in 
the  contemporary  criticism  of  their  exploits  as  the  senator 
now  finds  in  my  limning  of  the  rogues  and  mercenaries  whose 
cause  he  champions,  and  who,  unlike  the  "sensitive" 
characters  referred  to,  have  lacked  the  decency  to  rid  the 
world  of  their  presence.  The  senator  must  excuse  me.  I 
can  not  cease  talking  while  he  and  his  party  friends  furnish 


REPLY  TO  SENATOR  HOWE.  269 

me  with  so  fruitful  a  text.  With  all  his  delinquencies,  I  find 
he  **  has  sensibility  left,  or  the  memory  of  sensibilities  ;  that 
he  remembers,  and  perhaps  regrets,  the  time  when  he  had  gen 
erous  impulses,  and  gave  loose  to  them  ;  when  he  had  moral 
perceptions,  and  trusted  them."  I  must,  therefore,  continue  to 
labor  for  him  in  hope,  not,  as  he  imagines,  for  the  pleasure 
of  witnessing  the  "  contortions  "  of  my  "victim,"  but  for  his 
good.  GEORGE  W.  JULIAN. 


REPLIES  TO  HON.  CARL  SCHURZ. 


NEW  YORK  WORLD  AND  NEW  YORK  SUN,  IN  THE  SPRING 

OF   1883. 


[New  York  World.] 

Sir :  A  copy  of  the  Evening-  Post  containing  your  reply 
to  my  recent  article  in  the  North  American  Review  is  before 
me.  The  angry  tone  of  your  letter  is  quite  as  remarkable  as 
its  substance.  The  burden  of  my  article  was  to  show  the 
shameful  subservience  of  the  land  department  of  the  govern 
ment  to  railway  management  during  the  past  thirty  years, 
and  in  performing  this  task  it  naturally  fell  in  my  way  to  re 
fer  to  your  official  conduct  while  Secretery  of  the  Interior. 
This  reference,  forming  only  a  small  part  of  my  general  in 
dictment,  was  purely  incidental,  and  for  the  simple  purpose 
of  illustrating  my  subject.  It  was  not  prompted  by  the  slight 
est  personal  unkindness,  and  yet  you  lose  your  temper  and 
bandy  epithets  as  if  I  had  singled  you  out  for  special  and 
elaborate  animadversion  and  pursued  you  with  personal  mal 
ice.  Your  wincing  is  significant.  Conscious  innocence  is 
not  apt  to  pour  itself  forth  in  uncomely  rhetoric  and  inexcus 
able  passion. 

But  I  proceed  at  once  to  notice  your  defense.  Your  first 
complaint  is  founded  on  the  following  extract,  which  you 
quote  from  my  article  : 

"Another  advantage  gained  by  the  railroads  had  its  ori 
gin  in  an  opinion  given  by  Attorney-General  Black,  in  1857, 
when  the  railroad  companies  were  anxious  to  obtain  certified 
lists  of  their  lands  before  they  had  been  earned.  Mr.  Black 
held  that  these  lists  were  simply  in  the  nature  of  information 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  271 

from  the  records  of  the  department,  and  that  he  could  see  no 
objection  to  issuing  them  to  any  person  who  desired  to  make 
a  proper  use  of  them,  just  as  any  other  information  would  be 
furnished  from  the  records,  and  that  they  could  have  no  in 
fluence  on  the  title  to  the  lands.  Under  this  opinion  the  de 
partment  issued  the  certified  lists  as  required  ;  but  in  May, 
1880,  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  decided  that  where  any  of 
his  predecessors  have  certified  lands  under  railroad  grants 
their  acts  are  final  and  conclusive,  and  binding  upon  him  as 
their  successor.  He  further  held  that  a  complete  legal  title 
was  conveved  by  such  certified  lists,  and  that  the  latter  were 
in  all  respects  equivalent  to  patents." 

You  say  "  this  can  have  but  one  meaning,  and  it  has  been 
so  understood  by  all  the  newspapers  which  have  commented 
upon  it — that  certified  lists  of  lands,  issued  without  the  lands 
having  been  earned  by  the  railroad  companies,  merely  in  the 
nature  of  information,  without  any  intentien  of  conveying 
title  thereby,  were  decided  by  me,  as  Secretary  of  the  Inte 
rior,  to  have  conveyed  to  the  railroad  companies  complete 
legal  title  to  the  lands  so  listed." 

This  is  exactly  what  I  charge,  and  there  is  nothing  in  it 
which  can  give  you  the  slightest  trouble  but  its  absolute  truth. 
Let  me  now  follow  you  in  your  attempt  to  wriggle  out  of  your 
dilemma  by  cunning  evasions,  and  to  break  the  force  of 
what  I  say  by  perfectly  reckless  and  unwarranted  asser 
tions. 

In  your  decision  respecting  the  lands  involved  in  the  case 
of  Brown  v.  The  Chicago ,  Rock  Island  and  Pacific  Railroad 
Company,  to  which  I  referred,  you  declare,  first,  "that  these 
lands  were  certified  to  the  state  by  my  predecessors,  and 
their  acts  are  final  and  conclusive,  and  binding  upon  me  as 
their  successor  in  office;"  and,  second,  that  "the  certifica 
tion  of  these  lands  invested  the  state  with  a  complete  legal 
title  to  the  same,  which  was  in  all  respects  equivalent  to  a 
patent."  In  this  decision,  you  say  further,  that  the  merits  of 
the  case  had  already  been  passed  upon  by  your  predecessor, 
in  August,  1876  (in  the  case  of  Bell  v.  The  Chicago,  Rock 


272  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

Island  and  Pacific  Railroad  Company),  and  that  they  had  also 
been  covered  by  a  decision  of  the  United  States  Circuit  Court 
for  the  Eighth  Circuit,  which  you  quote  as  follows,  in  the  case 
of  Drury  v.  Hollenbeck: 

"The  title  to  the  tract  of  land  in  controversy  in  this  suit 
was  by  the  act  of  1856  vested  in  the  state  of  Iowa.  The  tract 
in  question  was  within  the  terms  of  the  act  of  1856,  and  when 
it  was  selected  and  the  selection  approved  and  certified  by 
the  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office,  the  title  became 
perfect  in  the  state.  Every  act  had  then  been  performed 
necessary  to  make  the  title  of  the  state  complete." 

There  is  thus  no  controversy  whatever  about  your  action 
in  recognizing  as  valid  the  certified  lists  referred  to,  and  your 
defense  is  that  "  in  the  original  granting  act  (the  act  of  May 
15,  1856),  as  well  as  the  act  amendatory  thereof  (June  2,  1874), 
it  was  expressly  and  specifically  provided  that  complete  legal 
title  should  be  conveyed  to  the  state  and  the  company  by 
certified  lists,  and  in  no  other  way."  But,  most  unfortunately 
for  yourself,  no  such  provision  as  you  here  cite  is  contained 
in  the  act  of  1856.  There  is  not  a  word  in  it  providing  for 
the  conveyance  of  title  in  that  way  ;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
the  grant  is  in  presentt,  and  the  title  passed  to  all  the  lands 
embraced  in  it  by  the  granting  clause  itself.  The  lands  in 
volved  in  the  case  of  Brown  v.  The  Chicago,  Rock  Island 
and  Pacific  Road,  in  the  case  of  Andrew  L.  Bellv.  The  Same 
Company,  and  in  the  case  of  Drury  v.  Hollenbeck,  decided 
by  Judge  Dillon,  were  all  claimed  under  the  act  of  May  15, 
1856,  and  the  certified  lists  referred  to  were  made  under  that 
grant  in  December,  1858,  more  than  five  years  before  the 
amendatory  act  was  passed.  That  the  title  in  these  cases 
was  conveyed  by  the  grant  itself  is  stated  by  the  very  author 
ities  on  which  you  rely,  including  Judge  Dillon  and  Secre 
tary  Chandler;  and  you  yourself,  in  the  case  you  decided, 
quote  from  an  opinion  of  Attorney-General  Cushing,  of  Feb 
ruary,  1857,  in  which  he  expressly  states  that  the  Iowa  grant 
of  May  15,  1856,  was  a  grant  in  -presenti,  and  that  the  title 
to  the  lands  passed  by  the  statute  as  soon  as  they  became 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  273 

identified  by  the  definite  location  of  the  road.  It  is  true  that 
the  grant  provides  for  the  selection  of  indemnity  lands  by  an 
agent  of  the  state,  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Interior,  as  in  other  railroad  grants  ;  but  the  approval 
of  the  Secretary  is  simply  to  prevent  the  agent  from  making 
unauthorized  selections.  It  is  not  his  approval,  but  the  stat 
ute,  which  passes  the  title.  What  Judge  Dillon  obviously 
meant  was  that  the  selection  and  approval  were  necessary  to 
identify  the  lands  covered  by  the  grant.  And  yet,  in  the 
face  of  the  act  of  Congress  of  1856,  and  of  the  plain  lan 
guage  of  the  very  authorities  on  which  you  rely,  you  declare 
that  complete  legal  title  to  the  lands  involved  was  to  be  con 
veyed  to  the  state  and  the  company  by  certified  lists,  "and 
in  no  other  way."  You  write  with  the  air 'of  one  having 
knowledge,  but  the  display  you  make  of  your  ignorance  is 
picturesque,  and  is  only  matched  by  the  heroic  audacity  of 
your  assertions. 

But  you  make  a  further  and  equally  futile  attempt  to  de 
fend  yourself  by  appealing  to  the  act  of  Congress  of  August 
3,  1854,  which  you  quote  as  follows  : 

"Where  lands  have  been,  or  may  hereafter  be,  granted 
by  any  law  of  Congress  to  any  one  of  the  several  states  or 
territories,  and  where  such  law  does  not  convey  the  fee-sim 
ple  title  of  the  land,  or  require  patents  to  be  issued  therefor, 
the  lists  of  such  lands  which  have  been  or  may  hereafter  be 
certified  by  the  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office  un 
der  the  seal  of  his  office,  whether  as  originals  or  copies  of  the 
originals,  or  records,  shall  be  regarded  as  conveying  the  fee- 
simple  of  all  the  lands  embraced  in  such  lists,  or  that  are  of 
the  character  contemplated  by  such  act  of  Congress,  and  in 
tended  to  be  granted  thereby  ;  but  where  lands  embraced  in 
such  lists  are  not  of  the  character  embraced  in  such  acts  of 
Congress,  and  are  not  intended  to  be  granted  thereby,  the 
lists,  so  far  as  these  lands  are  concerned,  shall  be  perfectly 
null  and  void,  and  no  right,  title,  claim  or  interest  shall  be 
conveyed  thereby." 

You  say  "this  statute  would  have  covered  the  case  com- 
18 


274  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

pletely,  and  made  it  my  clear  duty  to  recognize  the  certified 
lists  as  conveying  title,  even  had  the  granting  act  not  spe 
cifically  provided  for  this  and  no  other  mode  of  convey 
ance." 

But  I  have  just  shown,  and  by  your  own  authorities,  that 
the  act  of  1856  does  convey  the  fee-simple  title  of  the  land  in 
dispute,  and  therefore  that  the  lists  which  pretend  to  convey 
them  are  "  perfectly  null  and  void,"  according  to  the  statute 
you  quote  in  your  own  defense.  You  seem  to  have  a  genius 
for  blundering.  The  point  I  am  considering  was  directly  be 
fore  Attorney-General  Black  in  1857,  when  he  rendered  his 
opinion  already  quoted,  and  he  there  expressly  stated  that 
the  act  of  August  3,  1854,  does  not  apply  in  any  manner 
whatever  to  the  grant  made  to  Missouri  and  Arkansas  by  the 
act  of  February  9,  1853,  because  a  Legislative  grant  made 
by  Congress  does,  of  itself,  -profria  vigori,  pass  to  the  gran 
tee  all  the  estate  which  the  United  States  had  in  the  subject- 
matter  of  it,  except  what  is  expressly  excepted.  This  act  of 
Congress,  be  it  remembered,  is  of  the  same  character  as  that 
of  May  15,  1856,  and  has  always  been  so  regarded.  Mr. 
Black  further  declared  that  the  act  of  1854  prescribed  the 
duty  of  the  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office  in 
regard  to  Legislative  grants  when  the  law  does  not  convey 
the  title  nor  require  patents  to  be  issued,  and  yet  you  strange 
ly  quote  this  act  in  defense  of  your  lawless  conduct. 

But  even  if  the  case  were  otherwise,  your  defense  would 
fail.  The  certification  of  lands  under  the  act  of  1854,  ^n  a 
case  to  which  it  properly  applies,  could  only  convey  the  title 
through  a  compliance  with  the  terms  and  conditions  of  the 
granting  act.  In  the  case  under  consideration  the  grant,  as 
you  say,  is  to  the  state  ;  but  the  state  is  merely  a  trustee.  It 
acts  under  the  statute  as  its  power  of  attorney,  and  its  right 
depends  upon  a  compliance  with  its  requirements.  A  certi 
fication  of  lands  that  were  never  earned  could  not  be  a  valid 
conveyance  of  the  title,  nor  could  lands  be  conveyed  in  this 
way  as  indemnity  for  lands  never  granted  and  consequently 
never  lost  under  the  grant.  Your  attempt,  therefore,  to  le- 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  275 

galize  the  certification  of  lands  procured  by  false  pretences 
in  1857,  under  an  opinion  of  Attorney-General  Black,  before 
the  lands  had  been  earned,  could  not  be  defended,  even  if 
the  act  of  1854  na(^  been  applicable,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  an  executive  officer  is  absolutely  bound  by  the  act  of 
Congress  from  which  alone  he  derives  his  authority. 

In  thus  exposing  the  sophistry  and  nonsense  of  your  pre 
tended  defense,  I  have  anticipated  your  next  subterfuge, 
namely,  that  you  were  concluded  by  the  decisions  of  your 
predecessors,  and  I  have  shown  that  no  such  decisions  have 
been  made.  Let  me  demonstrate  this  more  perfectly.  You 
have  not  denied  your  ruling  that  the  certified  lists  of  1858 
conveyed  the  title  the  same  as  a  patent,  and  you  are  the  first 
and  only  Secretary  of  the  Interior  who  ever  so  held.  As  I 
have  already  said,  neither  Chandler  nor  Dillon  ever  so  de 
cided.  Chandler  expressly  decided  to  the  contrary  ,  as  De 
lano  had  done  before  him.  In  the  case  of  Brown  v.  The 
Chicago,  Rock  Island  and  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  which 
you  decided  in  May,  1880,  the  certified  lists  were  precisely 
of  the  same  kind  as  those  issued  in  1857,  under  the  opinion 
of  Judge  Black.  They  were  issued  to  the  state  of  Iowa  upon 
the  theory  of  that  opinion,  and,  of  course,  conveyed  no  title. 
The  road  was  not  completed  until  the  year  1869,  being  eleven 
years  after  the  lists  were  issued.  Little  or  nothing  had  been 
done,  even  as  to  the  commencement  of  the  road,  in  Decem 
ber,  1858,  when  the  lists  were  issued,  and  of  course  they  were 
issued  for  unearned  lands.  Judge  Black,  in  his  opinion,  held 
that  the  lands  within  granted  limits  became  identified  by  the 
definite  location  of  the  road,  and  those  within  indemnity 
limits  by  approved  selection.  The  act  of  1856  expressly  pro 
vides  that  the  indemnity  lands  shall  be  selected  after  the  defi 
nite  location  of  the  line  of  the  road,  and  in  the  case  cited  by 
you,  Judge  Dillon  said  that  the  line  was  definitely  fixed  in 
November,  1856.  You  ought  to  have  known  that  the  only 
indemnity  selections  ever  made  under  the  grant  of  18^6  were 
made  September  4,  of  that  year,  more  than  two  months  prior 
to  the  definite  location.  You  ought  to  have  known  that  this 


276  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

was  no  selection  at  all  in  point  of  law,  and  that  the  lands 
could  only  have  been  certified  on  the  theory  of  Judge  Black's 
opinion  that  the  act  of  August  3,  1854,  nac^  no  application  at 
all  to  such  grants.  I  believe  the  lists  under  all  the  early 
grants  prior  to  1862  were  issued  in  pursuance  of  Judge  Black's 
opinion,  and  a  gentleman  fit  for  the  position  of  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  would  have  seen  that  this  certification  was  no 
adjudication  whatever  of  the  rights  of  settlers.  He  would 
have  known  that  in  all  cases  settlements  under  the  preemp 
tion  law  were  allowed  within  the  granted  and  indemnity 
limits  up  to  the  date  of  the  definite  location  of  the  road  or  the 
withdrawal  of  the  lands  from  settlement.  This  was  the  earlv 
practice  of  the  department,  and  recognized  by  circular  letter 
of  April  5,  1854.  Settlers  were  not  required  to  file  declara 
tory  statements  or  notices  of  their  claims  in  the  local  land 
offices,  but  were  permitted,  after  the  lapse  of  years,  to  prove 
up  their  claims,  notwithstanding  the  previous  certification  of 
the  lands  granted. 

This  was  done  in  cases  that  were  never  brought  to  the 
attention  of  the  department  till  about  the  time  the  road  was 
completed  in  1869,  and  I  am  reliably  assured  that  even  as 
late  as  1873  and  1874  settlers  within  the  limits  of  Iowa 
grants  were  allowed  to  enter  lands  that  had  been  certified  to 
the  state  in  December,  1858,  under  the  grant  of  1856,  while 
no  one  dreamed  that  the  previous  certification  of  the  land 
would  preclude  them  from  so  doing.  Can  you  not  see  that 
the  department,  in  December,  1858,  could  not  adjudicate 
upon  facts  that  came  before  it  ten  or  twelve  years  afterwards? 
Ought  not  this  to  be  clear  even  to  a  man  "  not  a  lawyer," 
but  "only  a  journalist?"  The  truth  is,  that  for  at  least  a 
dozen  years  after  the  certified  lists  of  December,  1858,  were 
issued,  the  General  Land  Office  continued  cancelling  tract 
after  tract  on  the  lists,  as  settlement  claims  made  prior  to  the 
withdrawal  of  the  lands  were  from  time  to  time  proved  up. 
The  department  always  regarded  the  lists  as  subject  to  final 
correction  according  to  ascertained  facts.  This  was  the 
practice  under  all  similar  railroad  grants.  It  is  clear,  there- 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  277 

fore,  that  your  attempt  to  take  refuge  under  previous  rulings 
of  the  Interior  Department  can  not  shield  you  from  the  charge 
of  recreancy  to  your  official  duty,  and  that,  in  your  own  lan 
guage,  you  did  make  "  a  law  of  your  own  for  the  benefit  of 
railroad  corporations,  by  which  unearned  lands  could  be  sur 
reptitiously  put  into  their  possession." 

I  ought  to  add,  however,  as  I  desire  to  meet  every  phase 
of  your  defense,  that  if  your  predecessor  had  given  such  a 
decision  as  you  pretend,  it  could  not  justify  your  action.  I 
admit  that,  as  a  rule,  the  adjudications  of  a  secretary  are 
binding  upon  his  successor,  but  this  rule  has  its  exceptions. 
In  one  of  the  authorities  cited  by  you  on  this  question 
(i3th  Opinions  of  Attorney-General,  358),  Attorney-General 
Stanbury  declared  that  the  rule  does  not  apply  "where  there 
has  been  a  palpable  error  of  calculation,  or  where  new  facts 
are  subsequently  brought  forward  which  show  that  the  for 
mer  decision  was  erroneous  and  would  probably  not  have 
been  made  if  the}'  had  been  known  at  the  time  of  the  decis 
ion." 

If  your  predecessor  had  decided  in  1876  that  certified 
lists  issued  by  the  land  department  as  mere  information  and 
not  as  conveying  any  title  whatever,  did,  nevertheless,  con 
vey  a  complete  legal  title,  which  was  in  all  respects  equiva 
lent  to  a  patent,  and  the  fact  was  brought  to  your  knowledge 
in  1880  that  these  lists  had  been  obtained  by  a  trick  through 
the  misuse  of  the  opinion  of  Attorney-General  Black,  you 
were  not  bound  in  law  or  conscience  to  aid  in  consummating 
this  fraud  upon  the  government.  But  the  rule  upon  which 
you  rely  is  by  no  means  uniformly  observed  in  practice,  even 
in  the  absence  of  any  special  exception.  You  are  probably 
aware  of  the  well-known  case  in  which  an  opinion  of  Secre 
tary  Harlan  was  overruled  by  Secretary  Browning,  and  that 
this  latter  ruling  was  afterwards  overruled  by  Secretary  De 
lano.  You  overruled  the  ruling  of  your  predecessors  in  your 
decision  in  the  case  of  Kniskern  v.  The  Hastings  and  Dakota 
Railroad  Company  in  April,  1879,  anc^  your  successor  has 
since  overruled  vour  decision.  You  changed  the  ruling  of 


278  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

your  predecessors  in  December,  1878,  in  the  case  of  Gates  v 
The  California  and  Oregon  Railroad  Company,  and  Secre 
tary  Teller  has  since  overruled  your  decision.  You  over 
ruled  your  redecessor  in  the  case  of  Serrano  v.  The  South 
ern  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  in  July,  1874  »  ^u^  y°ur  rul- 
ing  has  since  been  overruled  by  Secretary  Kirkwood.  In 
view  of  these  facts  your  pretense  that,  under  the  ruling  of 
your  predecessors,  you  were  powerless  to  protect  the  United 
States  against  the  wholesale  spoliation  of  the  public  domain 
by  railway  companies,  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  a 
transparent  fraud  and  an  impudent  fabrication.  There  was 
one  potent  reason,  and  only  one,  why  you  gave  your  de 
cision  in  1880,  and  that  was  that  you  were  the  servant  of  the 
railways,  and,  of  necessity,  the  enemy  of  the  settler. 

I  now  come  to  your  conduct  in  asking  the  advice  of  the 

J  O 

Attorney-General  on  the  question  whether  land-grant  rail 
roads  are  entitled  to  indemnity  for  lands  disposed  of  by  the 
United  States  within  the  granted  limits  prior  to  the  passage 
of  the  granting  act,  or  only  for  those  disposed  of  between  its 
'passage  and  the  definite  location  of  the  line  of  the  road. 
You  attempt  to  defend  your  action  on  the  plea  that  the 
point  involved  was  a  disputed  one  among  lawyers,  and 
that  it  was  your  duty,  as  the  head  of  your  department,  to  ask 
advice.  But  the  point  was  not  a  disputed  one  when  you 
referred  it  to  the  Attorney-General.  It  had  been  settled  by 
three  or  four  successive  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States.  These  decisions  were  your  guide,  and 
there  was  no  occasion  whatever  to  call  for  advice.  In  the 
case  of  The  United  States  v.  The  Leavenworth,  Lawrence 
and  Galveston  Railroad  Company,  Justice  Davis,  who  pro 
nounced  the  opinion,  had  made  the  case  so  perfectly  clear 
and  irresistibly  conclusive  as  to  remove  all  doubt.  He 
shows  that  Congress  could  not  grant  lands  that  had  al 
ready  been  disposed  of,  and  therefore  that  no  indemnity 
for  such  lands  could  be  allowed.  The  court  declares  in 
so  many  words,  in  this  case  and  in  that  of  The  United  States 
v.  The  Burlington  and  Missouri  River  Railroad  Company, 


REPLIES  TO  HON.  CARL  SCHURZ.  279 

that  indemnity  could  only  be  allowed  for  lands  "lost  by  the 
action  of  the  government  in  keeping  the  land  offices  open 
between  the  date  of  the  granting  act  and  the  location  of  the 
line  of  the  road."  There  could  be  no  mistake  about  the 
meaning  of  this  language.  A  child  could  understand  it,  and 
you  make  it  your  boast  that  you  accepted  this  opinion  as 
your  guide,  and  followed  it  till  the  closing  months  of  your 
administration,  when  you  referred  the  matter  to  the  Attorney - 
General,  "  in  consequence  of  the  protest  of  parties  interested, 
and  the  arguments  urged  by  respectable  attorneys."  But  all 
this  could  not  justify  your  perfectly  gratuitous  act.  You  say  : 
"  There  is  one  reason  imaginable,  and  only  one,  why,  under 
such  circumstances,  the  head  of  the  department,  and  not  a 
lawyer,  might  hesitate  to  ask  the  Attorney-General  for  ad 
vice.  It  is  that  he  might  consider  the  Attorney-General 
incompetent  as  a  jurist  or  corrupt  as  an  officer."  This  is  a 
remarkable  statement.  If  your  common  sense  had  not  taken 
its  flight  you  could  readily  have  imagined  another  and  equally 
conclusive  reason. 

The  character  of  the  Attorney-General  for  integrity  and 
capacity  was  not  necessarily  involved.  It  was  enough  for 
you  to  know  that  the  question  had  been  settled,  and  that  there 
was,  therefore,  no  occasion  whatever  for  reference,  and  when 
the  railroad  lobby  asked  you  to  refer  it  you  had  reasonable 
ground  to  suspect  a  design  to  use  you  for  base  purposes  and 
to  make  the  Attorney-General  your  ally.  You  say  the  At 
torney-General  is  "the  soul  of  honor."  This  may  be  true, 
but  it  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  he  gave  you  an  opinion  di 
rectly  in  conflict  with  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
and  attempted  to  justify  it  by  quoting  the  "mere  dictum"  of 
an  inferior  tribunal,  which  does  not  appear  in  its  printed 
opinion,  and  in  a  case  which  was  to  be  appealed  to  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States  for  final  decision.  You 
refer  to  the  important  official  positions  which  the  Attorney- 
General  has  occupied.  I  make  no  denial,  and  I  add,  also, 
that  you  have  been  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  You  at  first 
adopted  the  judgment  of  the  Supreme  Court  as  your  guide, 


28O  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

but  excuse  yourself  by  saying  that  "the  interior  department 
had  to  yield  to  legal  authority,  which  it  did  very  reluctantly." 
But  there  was  no  compulsion  whatever,  and  you  had  no  right 
to  accept  any  "legal  authority"  in  opposition  to  that  of  the 
Supreme  Court.  In  the  opinion  of  Attorney-General  Crit- 
tenden  of  the  3<Dth  of  June,  1851,  addressed  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Interior,  as  to  the  binding  character  of  a  previous 
opinion  of  Attorney-General  Johnson,  he  says  :  "The  opin 
ions  of  an  Attorney-General  are  merely  advisory.  No  law 
gives  them  any  technical,  specific  or  official  consequence  or 
effect.  To  whatever  respect  the  high  character  of  Mr.  John 
son  may  justly  entitle  his  opinion,  I  may  very  confidently 
say  that  no  law  has  made  it  binding  or  obligatory  upon  you. 
The  weight  that  you  should  give  it  can  be  determined  by  no 
other  standard  than  your  own  judgment."  You  were,  there 
fore,  left  perfectly  free  to  exercise  "your  own  judgment," 
and  to  testify  your  decent  respect  for  the  paramount  authority 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  You  did  not 
yield  "  reluctantly,"  but  willingly.  The  question  involved 
the  title  to  millions  of  acres  of  the  public  domain  which  had 
illegally  fallen  into  the  clutches  of  our  land-grant  railways, 
and  it  was  sacredly  incumbent  upon  you  as  an  officer  and  an 
honest  man  to  stand  by  the  rights  of  the  United  States,  and 
guard  your  own  personal  honor  against  the  suspicion  of 
having  sacrificed  those  rights  in  the  service  of  great  mon 
opolies. 

You  further  seek  to  excuse  your  conduct  by  referring  to 
an  opinion  of  Justice  Miller,  in  the  case  of  Barney  v.  The 
Winona  and  St.  Peter  Railroad  Company,  given  since  that 
of  Attorney-General  Devens,  and  reported  in  2d  McCrary's 
Reports,  421,  in  which  he  concurs  with  Justice  Harlan  in  the 
case  cited  by  Attorney-General  Devens.  My  perfectly  suffi 
cient  answer  to  this  is  that  Justice  Miller  was  on  the  Supreme 
Bench  when  the  contrary  principle  was  settled  and  gave  no 
dissenting  opinion.  He  was  thus  committed  to  the  principle 
that  indemnity  can  not  be  allowed  for  lands  disposed  of  prior 
to  the  grant,  but  only  for  those  lost  by  the  action  of  the  gov- 


REPLIES  TO  HON.  CARL  SCHURZ.  28 1 

ernment  between  the  date  of  the  grant  and  the  definite  loca 
tion  of  the  line  of  the  road.  If  he  had  given  a  dissenting 
opinion  it  could  not  have  changed  the  law  as  settled  by  the 
court,  and  by  which  he  was  completely  bound,  both  as  a  judge 
and  a  citizen.  And  yet  you  parade  him  before  the  country 
as  attempting  to  nullify  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  and  stultifying  himself,  and  quote  him  as 
telling  you  that  the  Attorney  General  was  right  in  the  advis 
ory  opinion  he  gave  you.  I  think  he  will  not  thank  you  for 
inviting  public  attention  to  such  performances,  while  they 
can  furnish  no  shadow  of  justification  for  your  action. 

You  next  proceed  to  notice  my  statement  respecting  the 
award  of  indemnity  lands  under  the  grant  made  to  the  At- 
chison,  Topeka  and  Santa  Fe  road.  This  statement,  as  Iny 
language  shows,  was  made  on  the  information  of  others,  and 
not  as  a  fact  within  my  own  knowledge.  My  authority  was 
an  exceedingly  well-informed  official  in  the  land  office,  who 
inadvertently  confounded  indemnity  with  granted  lands.  To 
this  extent  he  was  inaccurate,  and  you  seem  to  take  great 
comfort  in  the  fact.  This  is  quite  natural,  considering  the 
serious  tribulations  of  your  situation ;  but  let  us  see  how 
much  solid  ground  for  comfort  the  actual  facts  of  the  case 
will  afford  you.  You  do  not  deny  that  you  awarded  lands 
to  that  railway  in  1880,  and  the  land  office  reports  show 
that  while  you  were  Secretary  280,717  acres  were  certified 
and  approved  to  the  road.  There  had  been  previously  cer 
tified  2,465,221  acres,  making  an  aggregate  of  2,745,938 
acres.  According  to  ex-Governor  Crawford,  of  Kansas, 
now  employed  by  the  state  to  assert  her  rights  against  said 
railway,  the  greatest  amount  the  company  could  possibly 
receive  under  the  grant  would  be  2,361,600  acres.  He  esti 
mates  the  amount  disposed  of  to  settlers  prior  to  the  date  of 
the  grant  at  150,000  acres,  thus  reducing  the  legal  claim  of 
the  company  to  2,211,600  acres,  or  about  253,621  acres  less 
than  the  road  had  received  before  your  approval  of  1880 ;  so 
that  even  under  the  ruling  of  Attorney-General  Devens  the 
road  had  received  an  excess  of  384,338  acres  prior  to  that 


282  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

date,  which  was  increased  by  you  to  665,055  acres.  If  these 
were  not  indemnity  lands  the  fact  is  equally  material  and 
equally  damaging  to  you  that  the  company  had  no  right  to 
them,  and  I  thus  demonstrate  the  power  of  railway  influence 
over  the  land  department,  and  over  you,  especially,  as  its 
official  head. 

You  take  great  credit  to  yourself  for  having  adopted  a 
rule  requiring  railroad  companies,  in  selecting  indemnity,  to 
specify  the  particular  tracts  within  the  granted  limits  for  the 
loss  of  which  indemnity  is  claimed.  But  of  what  service 
could  this  be  unless  accompanied  by  the  further  requirement 
that  the  companies  should  also  specify  the  particular  tracts  in 
lieu  of  which  indemnity  already  received  has  been  selected? 
Ha'd  you  made  this  requirement  of  the  Atchison,  Topeka  and 
Santa  Fe  Company — which  had  already  received,  prior  to 
1880,  more  lands  within  the  indemnity  limits  than  it  had  lost 
within  the  granted  limits,  even  under  the  Devens  opinion — it 
would  then  have  been  your  duty  to  call  upon  the  company 
for  the  surrender  of  the  illegal  excess,  instead  of  certifying 
an  additional  quantity.  But  no  such  requirement  was  made 
of  this  or  any  other  company  ;  and  the  rule  of  which  you 
make  boast  has  been  so  administered  that  they  have  been 
permitted  to  designate  as  a  basis  of  indemnity  the  same  land 
lost  in  place  which  formed  the  basis  of  previous  selections 
without  being  designated.  By  this  practice  the  same  tract 
within  the  granted  limits  has  twice  become  the  basis  of  an 
indemnity  selection — first  without  being  designated  as  such, 
and  afterwards  by  being  so  designated  under  your  rule  as 
a  second  crop  of  indemnity  for  the  same  land.  You  say  you 
are  sure  the  bearing  of  this  rule  was  appreciated  by  the  land- 
grant  railroads  if  not  by  me.  I  agree  with  you,  and  have 
pointed  out  the  reason  why  they  appreciate  it,  and  the  man 
ner  in  which  they  made  you  the  instrument  of  their  plunder. 
If  they  do  not  thank  you  t^ey  are  strangely  wanting  in  grat 
itude. 

I  come  now  to  some  minor  matters  to  which  you  refer  in 
connection  with  your  defense.  You  quote  the  testimony  of 


REPLIES  TO  HON.  CARL  SCHURZ.  283 

the  chief  of  the  railroad  division  of  the  general  land  office, 
given  before  a  Senate  committee,  covering  the  year  ending 
December,  1881,  showing  that  of  824  cases  in  which  final 
action  was  taken  between  settlers  and  railroad  companies, 
635  were  decided  in  favor  of  the  former.  In  parading  this 
fact  your  deliberate  purpose  is  to  deceive.  The  evidence  to 
which  you  refer  shows  that  all  cases  considered  by  the  de 
partment  which  involve  land  in  railroad  limits  are  treated  as 
contested  cases.  This  is  their  status,  whether  the  railroads 
make  any  actual  contest  or  not.  There  are,  of  course,  many 
tracts  within  railroad  limits  so  clearly  excepted  from  the 
grant  that  the  companies  themselves  concede  the  rights  of 
settlers,  and  these  cases,  as  you  well  know,  are  always  more 
numerous  than  those  of  a  doubtful  character  which  lead  to 
litigation,  because  settlers,  as  a  rule,  have  not  the  means  to 
carry  on  contests,  and  rarely,  if  ever,  undertake  to  do  so  if 
the  rulings  of  the  department  are  against  them  in  the  begin 
ning.  As  there  is  nothing  in  the  evidence  to  which  you 
refer  to  show  that  any  actual  contests  were  made  in  any  of 
the  635  cases  referred  to,  the  fact  you  present  is  wholly  irrel 
evant,  and  could  only  have  been  stated  to  mislead.  But  even 
if  these  cases  had  been  actual  contests  it  could  not  affect  the 
showing  made  in  my  article,  which  related  to  the  general 
administration  of  the  land  department  for  a  long  series  of 
years.  What  I  said  is  fully  supported  by  the  sworn  testi 
mony  of  capable  and  experienced  land  office  officials,  as 
given  before  the  Senate  Committee  on  Public  Lands  of  the 
last  Congress,  and  printed  with  the  report  of  that  committee, 
which  is  numbered  362.  One  of  these  witnesses  is  now  the 
chief  law  clerk  of  the  general  land  office,  and  knows  ten 
fold  more  about  its  practical  affairs  than  yourself,  and  if  you 
had  consulted  his  testimony  you  would  have  made  no  denial 
of  my  statement. 

You  complain  that  in  criticising  your  action  I  did  not 
mention  some  of  your  decisions  adverse  to  the  railroads.  If 
you  made  any  such  decisions  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  them. 
My  task  was  to  show  that  for  nearly  a  third  of  a  century  the 


284  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

land  department,  to  a  very  great  extent,  has  been  the  servant 
of  the  railroads  and  not  of  the  people.  This  I  demonstrated, 
and  in  doing  so  I  necessarily  involved  you  in  my  general  in 
dictment. 

You  refer  to  a  noted  case  in  which  you  decided,  in  1878, 
that  where  the  act  making  a  grant  of  land  to  a  railroad  com 
pany  provided  that  all  the  land  so  granted  "which  shall  not 
be  sold  or  disposed  of  by  said  company  within  three  years 
after  the  entire  road  shall  have  been  completed  shall  be  sub 
ject  to  settlement  and  preemption  like  other  lands,  at  a  price 
not  to  exceed  $"1.25  per  acre,  to  be  paid  to  the  company," 
the  provision  meant  that  all  lands  not  actually  sold  by  the 
company  three  years  after  the  completion  of  the  road  should 
be  thrown  open  to  settlement  under  the  preemption  law. 
You  say  this  decision  covered  six  land-grant  roads,  and  that 
it  turned  over  to  settlers  many  millions  of  acres,  but  that 
"the  railroad  corporations"  rushe'd  at  you  with  urgent  ap 
plications  for  a  reconsideration  of  your  decision,  which  you 
refused.  You  say  the  corporations  then  went  before  the 
courts  and  finally  obtained  a  decision  that  under  the  "loose 
wording"  of  the  granting  acts  the  mortgage  of  the  granted 
lands  was  a  disposition  of  them  within  the  meaning  of  the 
law,  and  that  this  decision  was  the  "keenest  disappoint 
ment"  you  suffered  while  at  the  head  of  your  department. 
This  sounds  pretty  well.  It  seems  to  indicate  that  at  this 
early  period  of  your  administration  you  really  had  a  spasm 
of  virtue.  I  hope  you  had,  but  it  was  so  momentary  and 
sporadic,  and  stands  out  in  such  strange  contrast  with  the 
whole  current  of  your  official  action  that  I  strongly  suspect 
you  were  playing  a  mere  game  of  official  clap-trap.  Let  me 
analyze  it  for  a  moment,  and  let  the  reader  judge.  Notwith 
standing  the  keenness  of  your  disappointment  when  you 
found  that  your  attempt  to  rescue  the  settlers  in  the  case 
from  the  clutches  of  "six  of  the  land-grant  roads"  had 
failed,  you  promptly  recalled  your  decision  and  excused  the 
court  on  the  ground  of  the  "loose  wording"  of  the  statute.  You 
meekly  and  lovingly  conformed  your  action  to  a  ruling  which 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  285 

handed  over  to  the  railways  millions  of  acres,  with  the  for 
tunes  of  the  men  whose  just  right  to  them  no  one  could  dis 
pute  ;  and  although  this  decision  at  once  gave  rise  to  a  de 
cided  difference  of  opinion  and  had  to  run  the  gauntlet  of 
legal  criticism  and  popular  condemnation,  it  never  occurred 
to  you  to  call  on  the  Attorney-General  for  his  advice,  or  even 
to  hesitate  a  moment  in  your  course. 

But  when  this  same  court,  in  the  case  of  the  United 
States  v.  The  Leavenzuorth,  Lawrence  and  Galveston  Railroad 
Company,  gave  a  decision  by  which  millions  of  acres  of  the 
public  domain  could  be  snatched  from  the  illegal  control  of 
the  railways  and  awarded  to  settlers,  you  repudiated  its  au 
thority  by  following  the  advisory  opinion  of  Attorney-Gen 
eral  Devens,  which  you  now  attempt  to  whitewash.  In  this 
you  simply  repeat  your  action  in  January,  1879,  *n  tne  case 
of  Beck  et  al.  v.  The  Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  in 
which  you  followed  a  shameful  ruling  of  Secretary  Delano 
and  disregarded  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the 
case  of  Nezvhall  v.  Sanger,  which  would  have  saved  the 
homes  of  a  multitude  of  settlers  who  have  been  turned  adrift 
at  the  bidding  of  railway  corporations.  Your  reverence  for 
the  Supreme  Court  is  thus  made  to  depend  upon  the  party 
who  profits  by  its  decision,  while  you  sacrifice  to  the  railways 
both  conscience  and  consistency.  They  have  evidently 
"rushed  at"  you,  and  you  have  succumbed;  for  with  the 
single  exception  of  your  apocryphal  ruling  in  the  Dudymott 
case  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  a  decision  against  railroad 
companies,  except  such  as  were  based  upon  decisions  of  your 
predecessors  which  had  become  precedents  in  the  depart 
ment  before  you  became  secretary.  I  have  found  no  case 
in  which  you  have  attempted  to  modify  the  rulings  of  any  of 
your  predecessors  in  the  interest  of  settlers  and  against  the 
claims  of  railroad  companies,  while  in  several  instances  you 
have  modified  previous  rulings  in  their  interest  and  against 
the  claims  of  settlers. 

You  did  this  in  December.  1878,  in  your  ruling  in  the 
well-known  case  of  Gates  v.  The  California  and  Oregon 


286  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

Railroad  Company,  under  which  a  large  number  of  settlers 
lost  their  homes  during  the  four  years  it  was  in  force.  But, 
as  I  have  before  stated,  the  doctrine  of  that  case  was  set 
aside  as  unsound  in  December  last  by  Secretary  Teller,  and 
much  to  his  credit.  So  in  the  case  of  Serrano  v.  The  Union 
Pacific  Railroad  Company,  in  July,  1879,  you  overruled  your 
predecessors  in  the  interest  of  the  railways,  by  which  many 
settlers  lost  their  claims  before  your  decision  was  set  aside 
in  December,  1881,  by  Secretary  Kirkwood.  In  April,  1879, 
in  the  case  of  Kniskern  v.  The  Hastings  and  Dakota  Railroad 
Company,  involving  the  interpretation  of  the  soldiers'  home 
stead  law,  you  overruled  the  decision  of  your  predecessors, 
thit  a  soldier's  entry,  while  existing  on  the  records,  operates 
to  reserve  the  land  from  a  railroad  grant  under  the  general 
rule  of  law  applicable  to  all  homestead  entries.  Many  sol 
diers  lost  their  claims  under  this  ruling,  which  prevailed 
until  the  I2th  of  February  last,  when  Secretary  Teller,  in  the 
case  of  Julia  D.  Graham  v.  The  Hastings  and  Dakota  Rail 
road  Company,  substantially  overruled  your  decision  and  re 
instated  that  of  your  predecessors.  To  these  singular  sam 
ples  of  your  loving  kindness  for  settlers,  and  your  hostility 
to  the  railways  I  may  add  your  decision  in  January,  1879,  ^n 
the  case  of  Beck  et  al.  v.  The  Central  Pacific  Railroad  Com 
pany,  under  which  the  lands  of  a  large  number  of  settlers 
on  a  reserved  Mexican  grant  were  awarded  to  railways 
without  any  warrant  of  law,  and  as  a  part  of  the  despicable 
game  of  fast  and  loose  played  by  the  land  department  under 
your  management  in  behalf  of  these  corporations,  and  already 
exposed  in  my  article  in  the  North  American  Review. 

As  to  your  closing  argument  of  "you're  another,"  I  have 
very  little  to  say.  I  was  not  a  member  of  the  Pacific  Rail 
road  Committee  which  drafted  the  grants  to  which  you  refer, 
and  whose  "loose  wording"  you  think  caused  so  much  mis 
chief.  As  a  member  of  the  House  Committee  on  Public 
Lands  I  did  everything  in  my  power  to  curb  the  recklessness 
and  extravagance  of  land  grants  and  to  guard  the  rights  of 
settlers  by  adequate  provisions.  When  you  attempt  to  make 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  287 

me  responsible,  not  only  for  the  passage  of  the  various  grant 
ing  acts,  but  for  the  particular  phraseology  of  every  act  and 
every  clause  contained  in  it,  your  picture  of  my  parliamen 
tary  omnipotence  is  so  splendid  that  I  confess  myself  a  little 
dazzled  by  it.  You  have  a  poetical  turn  of  mind.  But  if 
what  you  say  were  the  exact  truth  it  could  not  justify  you  in 
abetting  the  theft  of  .millions  of  acres  of  the  people's  patri 
mony  which  should  be  awarded  to  settlers  at  the  minimum 
rate,  instead  of  being  made  the  spoil  of  greedy  corporations 
and  sold  at  rates  to  be  fixed  by  themselves  under  the  legal 
ized  system  of  blackmail  sanctioned  by  your  official  acts. 

I  think  I  have  now  disposed  of  you  entirely.  In  the  light 
of  the  facts  I  have  stated,  and  supported  by  proof,  it  seems 
utterly  incredible  that  you  presided  over  the  great  home  de 
partment  of  the  government  for  four  years  ;  and  the  fact  that 
the  country  has  survived  your  administration  is  a  fresh  illus 
tration  of  the  power  of  republican  institutions  to  withstand  the 
most  deadly  assaults.  With  due  respect, 

GEO.  W.  JULIAN. 
HON.  CARL  SCHURZ. 


[  New  York  Sun.] 

HON.  CARL  SCHURZ — Sir:  Your  first  open  letter  to  me 
in  reply  to  my  article  in  the  North  American  Review  was  the 
product  of  a  whole  month's  incubation,  and  in  the  labor  of 
bringing  it  forth  you  were  assisted  by  Mr.  Marble,  your 
legal  adviser,  and  other  official  and  personal  friends  in. the 
Interior  Department.  That  you  were  proud  of  your  work 
was  made  evident  by  the  amusing  strut  of  self-complacency 
with  which  it  was  offered  to  the  public,  while  it  revealed  your 
perfect  and  child-like  innocence  of  any  knowledge  of  the 
questions  you  had  undertaken  to  discuss.  It  really  seemed 
a  little  cruel  to  unroof  your  charming  little  Paradise  of  shal- 
lowness  and  self-conceit,  and  publicly  impale  you  on  your 
ignorance  ;  but  you  invited  me  to  the  task  and  I  performed 
it  thoroughly  in  my  letter  in  the  World.  On  every  question 


288  CONTROVERSIAL  PAPERS. 

of  fact  and  law  involved  in  the  controversy  you  were  com 
pletely  driven  to  the  wall,  and  every  man  who  read  your  let 
ter  and  my  reply  knows  it.  You,  yourself,  with  all  your  le 
gal  thickheadedness,  felt  it,  and  what  you  would  do  in  your 
distressing  dilemma  became  the  conundrum  alike  of  your 
friends  and  your  enemies.  Silence  on  your  part,  however, 
was  death,  and  as  nothing  could  be  worse  than  that,  you  de 
termined  upon  another  public  appearance,  and  through  the 
sweat  and  toil  of  another  month  you  struggled  to  find  your 
way  out  of  the  ditch  in  which  I  had  compelled  you  to  meas 
ure  your  length.  We  now  have  you  posturing  before  the 
country  in  act  second  of  your  interesting  drama  as  ex-Secre 
tary  of  the  Interior,  and  my  only  hope  as  to  your  mental  con 
dition  is  inspired  by  the  glimmer  of  light  which  seems  to 
have  dawned  upon  you  at  the  close  of  your  letter,  where  you 
say  that  this  is  your  last  attempt  to  defend  your  official  con 
duct. 

I  must,  however,  give  you  some  credit  as  to  this  farewell 
address.  It  is  quite  clear  that  you  have  found  a  new  set  of 
advisers,  and  that  your  final  effort  is  the  only  one  which  af 
forded  you  the  faintest  shadow  of  deliverance.  Believing 
that  by  this  time  the  unmanageable  facts  on  which  I  brought 
you  to  your  disagreeable  reckoning  are  forgotten,  and  pre 
tending  innocently  to  ignore  them  as  if  you  had  never  wres 
tled  with  them  or  even  heard  of  them,  you  start  out  upon  a 
new  line  of  defense  ;  and  by  putting  into  my  mouth  state 
ments  I  never  made,  and  then  valorously  bombarding  your 
man  of  straw,  and  drawing  upon  your  imagination  both  for 
your  facts  and  embellishment,  you  seek  to  make  your  escape 
through  the  fog  thus  created  for  the  bewilderment  of  your 
readers.  In  your  extremity  you  play  the  game  of  the  cuttle 
fish,  which,  when  pursued,  throws  out  a  blackish,  dirty 
liquid,  that  so  darkens  the  water  as  to  afford  him  the  chance 
to  evade  his  pursuers.  Let  me  see  if  I  can  drive  you  from 
your  castle  of  mud,  and  once  more  hold  your  nose  to  the 
grindstone  while  I  turn  it. 

You  say  I  accuse  you  of  "having  devised  some  develish 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  289 

machinery  for  conveying  to  railroad  companies  lands  which 
do  not  belong  to  them."  You  purposely  misstate  the  case. 
You  simply  perverted  to  base  ends,  in  the  interest  of  the 
railways,  machinery  already  in  existence,  and  which  had 
been  created  for  a  totally  different  purpose.  My  charge  was 
that  certified  lists  of  lands,  issued  to  railroad  companies 
merely  in  the  nature  of  information,  without  any  intention  of 
conveying  title,  and  before  the  lands  had  been  earned,  were 
decided  by  you  to  have  conveyed  a  complete  legal  title, 
which  was  in  all  respects  equivalent  to  a  patent.  This,  at 
first,  you  indignantly  denied  ;  but  you  proceeded  at  once  to 
admit  it  by  pleading  in  confession  and  avoidance.  You  at 
tempted  to  defend  yourself  on  the  ground  that  the  act  of  May 
15,  1856,  specifically  provided  that  complete  legal  title  should 
be  conveyed  to  the  state  and  the  company  by  certified  lists, 
and  "in  no  other  way."  But  I  totally  demolished  that  de 
fense  by  showing  that  that  act  contains  no  such  provision, 
and  that  the  title  passed  to  all  the  lands  embraced  in  it  by  the 
granting  clause  itself.  You  further  sought  to  defend  your 
conduct  by  citing  the  act  of  Congress  of  August  3,  1854, 
as  your  justification  ;  but  I  demonstrated  by  that  act  itself 
and  your  own  authorities  that  your  decision  was  totally  un 
warranted,  and  that  the  lists  which  pretended  to  convey  the 
lands  in  question  were  "perfectly  null  and  void."  You  next 
cited  in  your  defense  the  decision  of  Judge  Dillon,  in  the  case 
of  Drury  v.  Hollenbeck,  and  a  decision  of  your  predecessor 
in  the  case  of  Andrew  L.  Bell  v.  The  Chicago  Rock  Island 
and  Pacific  Railroad  Company;  but  I  pinioned  you  on  the 
unfortunate  fact  that  neither  of  these  decisions  warranted 
your  ruling,  while  both  condemned  it.  You  thus  confessed 
my  charge  to  be  true,  while  you  utterly  broke  down  in  your 
attempt  to  defend  yourself.  If  you  had  been  an  honest  man, 
or  even  possessed  of  honest  tendencies,  you  would  have 
frankly  acknowleged  these  blunders  when  I  exposed  them. 
You  especially  owed  this  duty  to  yourself,  if  the  Assistant 
Attorney-General,  who  wrote  your  opinion,  misled  you  ;  but 
with  the  characteristic  effrontery  of  a  hired  flunkey  of  the 


290 


CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 


railways,  you  now  brazenly  reaffirm  your  uncovered  false 
hoods.  You  incorporate  into  your  code  of  morals  the  phi 
losophy  of  Sam  Patch,  and  hold  that  some  things  may  be 
said  as  well  as  others.  Your  tactics  suggest  the  lines  of  the 
poet : 

How  full  of  weight,  how  strong,  how  bold, 
The  big  round  lie  with  manly  courage  told. 

But  your  gifts  in  the  field  of  fiction  are  not  more  resplen 
dent  than  your  genius  for  wriggling.  Referring  to  my  posi 
tion  that  the  granting  clause  of  the  act  of  1856  conveys  the 
fee-simple  title  to  the  lands  in  dispute,  you  ask,  "Was  not 
the  road  entitled  to  the  lands  in  question?  "  Let  me  remiud 
you,  my  dear  Mrs.  Candor,  that  this  is  not  the  point  on 
which  I  arraigned  you.  Of  course  the  road  was  entitled  to 
the  lands  covered  by  the  grant,  subject  to  its  conditions  and 
the  rights  of  settlers.  What  you  decided  was,  that  the  lands 
were  conveyed  by  the  certified  lists,  and  could  be  conveyed 
"in  no  other  way  ;  "  and  under  cover  of  this  decision  hun 
dreds  of  thousands  of  acres  of  the  public  domain  have  been 
illegally  awarded  to  the  railway  companies  before  they  were 
earned,  although  the  opinion  of  Attorney-General  Black, 
under  which  the  lists  were  issued,  declared  that  they  could 
convey  no  title,  and  were  only  issued  as  mere  information. 
You  intentionally  converted  that  opinion  into  the  "  devilish 
machinery"  for  plundering  the  public  domain.  This  is  what 
you  did,  and  you  are  the  only  Secretary  of  the  Interior  who 
ever  so  ruled.  You  did  it  without  any  warrant  of  law  or 
precedent,  and  in  open  defiance  of  both.  You  did  it  as  the 
minion  of  your  masters  ;  and  I  now  ask  you  to  stand  where 
I  have  placed  you  long  enough  for  a  survey  of  your  moral 
lineaments.  Don't  wriggle,  but  stand  up  before  the  public 
in  the  act  of  deliberately  abetting  the  wholesale  piracy  of  the 
public  lands  through  yonr  official  ruling  in  behalf  of  the  rail 
ways. 

Let  me  scrutinize  you  a  little  further,  while  the  light 
shines  on  you.  You  at  first  denied  ever  making  the  decision 
referred  to,  and  compelled  me  to  prove  it,  which  I  did  by  the 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  29  I 

express  words  of  the  acts  of  Congress  cited  by  you,  and  the 
executive  and  judicial  rulings  on  which  you  relied.  In  con 
cluding  and  clinching  this  proof,  I  said  :  "  There  is  thus  no 
controversy  whatever  about  your  action  in  recognizing  as 
valid  the  certified  lists  referred  to ;"  and  you  now  quote  this 
language  to  show  that  you  were  right  in  a  decision  which  you 
deny  making,  and  that  I  indorse  it.  You  write  yourself 
down  a  moral  pickpocket  by  pretending  to  do  this  innocently. 
You  seek  to  hide  your  shame  under  a  juggle  of  words,  and 
blind  the  eyes  of  the  public  by  your  ''dissolving  views." 
You  are  not  brainless,  and  therefore  you  knew  that  what  I 
meant  and  said  was  that  there  was  no  controversy  about 
your  having  decided  the  validity  of  these  lists  as  a  convey 
ance.  This  was  the  very  point  I  was  debating  with  you, 
while  I  proceeded,  in  the  same  connection,  to  demonstrate 
the  absolute  invalidity  of  such  lists  as  a  conveyance  of  title. 
You  thus,  in  your  own  language,  illustrate  "  the  uncontrolla 
ble  propensity  of  hypocrites  to  overdo  what  they  attempt." 
You  coolly  pose  as  a  victor  in  the  field  of  your  digraceful 
defeat.  Your  impudence  is  phenomenal,  while  your  tricki- 
ness  suggests  a  prospective  place  for  you  in  the  rogues'  gal 
lery.  Are  you  silly  enough  to  believe  you  can  save  your 
character  by  thus  preaching  the  funeral  of  your  own  con 
science? 

Passing  to  your  next  item,  you  say  that  I  charged  you 
with  having  "committed  the  crime  of  asking  the  Attorney- 
General  for  legal  advice  in  a  case  on  which  the  Attorney- 
General's  opinion  did  not  agree  with  your  own."  Why  did 
you  make  this  statement,  which  not  one  of  your  readers  will 
accept  as  true?  Could  you  not  afford  the  luxury  of  telling 
the  truth  once?  What  I  charged  was  that,  in  the  interest  of 
the  railways,  you  gratuitously  asked  the  opinion  of  the  At 
torney-General  on  a  point  which  was  settled.  The  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  in  three  several  cases,  had  de 
cided  that  lands  already  disposed  of  by  the  government  can 
not  be  granted  to  a  railroad  company,  and  so  can  not  be  the 
basis  of  indemnity,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  have 


292  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

never  been  lost  by  the  company.  The  word  indemnity  means 
remuneration  for  loss  or  damage  incurred,  and  how  could  a 
railroad  be  entitled  to  it  if  the  lands  for  which  it  claims  in 
demnity  were  never  granted?  This  question  had  been  fully 
discussed  by  the  Supreme  Court  and  settled.  You  might  as 
well  have  asked  the  Attorney-General  whether  two  and  three 
make  five.  These  decisions  were  not  a  mere  dictum,  but  the 
adjudication  of  a  principle.  You  recognized  this  principle 
for  years,  but  finally  succumbed  to  the  railways  by  referring 
the  question,  at  their  instance,  as  a  doubtful  one,  to  the  At 
torney-General,  who  gave  you  an  opinion  in  direct  conflict 
with  the  ruling  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  which  he  attempted 
to  justify  by  the  dictum  of  Justice  Harlan  in  an  inferior 
tribunal  and  in  a  case  that  was  to  be  appealed  to  the  Supreme 
Court  for  final  decision.  Your  reference  to  Justice  Miller 
can  not  help  you  and  only  harms  him,  while  your  pretence 
that  you  were  compelled  to  abide  by  the  advice  of  the  Attor 
ney-General  was  a  false  one,  as  I  proved  by  your  own  au 
thorities  in  my  reply  to  your  first  letter.  You  obeyed  the 
Attorney-General  willingly  and  joyfully,  as  a  part  of  your 
engagement  to  serve  the  railways,  and  this  you  know  quite 
as  well  as  well  as  any  one  else  can.  You  even  went  beyond 
the  opinion  of  the  Attorney-General  by  adding  the  words 
"otherwise  disposed  of"  to  the  specification  of  prior  losses 
for  which  indemnity  might  be  allowed,  thus  greatly  enlarg 
ing  the  scope  of  the  opinion,  as  I  stated  in  my  Review  article, 
and  which  statement  you  have  admitted  by  failing  to  deny  it. 
You  reiterate  your  pettifogging  drivel  about  the  question 
of  indemnity  lands  under  the  grant  made  to  the  Atchison, 
Topeka  and  Santa  Fe  Railroad.  I  fully  disposed  of  this 
whole  matter  in  my  former  letter,  showing  the  enormous 
quantities  of  lands  awarded  to  that  road  in  excess  of  the 
grant,  through  your  action,  and  how  cunningly  but  potently 
you  played  into  its  hands  through  the  machinery  of  a  rule 
adopted  by  you  in  the  pretended  interest  of  settlers,  by 
which  large  quantities  of  lands  were  made  the  subject  of 
their  plunder.  You  take  no  notice  of  my  exposure  of  these 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  293 

facts,  which  leave  you  in  far  worse  condition  than  did  my 
first  charge  in  the  North  American  Review.  Why  did  you 
skulk  the  whole  matter?  And  why  should  I  repeat  what 
you  decline  to  notice,  and  thus  confess  to  be  true  by  your 
default? 

You  repeat  your  twaddle  about  the  decision  of  eight  hun 
dred  and  twenty-four  cases  in  1881,  of  which  six  hundred 
and  thirty-five  were  decided  in  favor  of  the  settlers.  This, 
also,  I  have  fully  dealt  with  in  my  former  letter,  showing 
that  all  cases  in  which  railroads  are  concerned  are  recog 
nized  in  the  department  as  contested  cases,  whether  any 
actual  contest  is  made  or  not,  and  that  your  figures  are 
wholly  without  significance  in  the  absence  of  evidence  show 
ing  what  cases  were  really  contested.  In  writing  your  fare 
well  letter,  why  did  you  not  notice  what  I  said?  You  pru 
dently  pass  it  all  by,  and  yet  talk  about  the  "suppression  of 
the  truth  "  and  the  "  falsification  of  facts."  As  a  pettifogger, 
you  make  the  average  practitioner  of  that  fine  art  exceedingly 
respectable. 

You  impute  to  me  the  statement  that  five  or  six  of  your 
decisions  have  been  overruled  by  your  successors,  and  say 
there  was  but  one.  I  did  not  say  there  were  five  or  six,  but 
specified  three,  referring  to  their  titles  and  dates  ;  and  the 
records  of  the  land  office  sustain  me.  You  say  you  have 
inquired  into  the  matter,  and  are  informed  by  "very  compe 
tent  authority"  that  there  was  but  one  such  cnse.  Why  did 
you  not  name  your  "  authority?  "  I  made  my  statement  from 
knowledge,  and  you  can  not  gainsay  it. 

You  again  pour  yourself  forth  on  the  subject  of  my  votes 
in  Congress,  and  my  infidelity  to  the  poor  settlers,  upon 
whom  you  have  so  lavished  your  love.  Your  return  to  this 
subject  after  the  knock-down  I  gave  you  in  my  first  letter 
shows  how  impossible  it  is  for  you  to  take  a  hint.  You 
would  be  glad,  of  course,  to  put  me  on  the  defensive,  but  I 
am  now  trying  you.  If  I  should  conclude  at  any  time  to  de 
fend  my  record  it  will  be  when  some  man  possessing  a  de 
cent  character  and  clean  hands  shall  make  the  attack.  I 


294 


CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 


plead  to  your  jurisdiction  ;  but  to  those  of  my  readers  who 
belong  to  the  present  generation  rather  than  the  past,  I  may 
be  pardoned  for  the  statement  of  a  few  facts.  I  championed 
the  policy  of  our  homestead  law  years  before  you  unloaded 
the  blessed  cargo  of  your  virtues  upon  our  shores.  In  this 
work  no  public  man  was  before  me.  Millions  of  acres  of  the 
public  domain  in  the  land  states  of  the  South  were  saved  to 
actual  settlers  by  the  southern  homestead  law  of  1866,  which 
I  reported  from  the  House  Committee  on  Public  Lands. 
Other  millions  were  snatched  from  monopolists  and  thieves, 
and  turned  over  to  settlers  by  efforts  in  which  I  was  an  ac 
tive  participant,  resulting  in  the  reform  of  our  Indian  treaty 
system,  under  which  lands  when  relinquished  by  a  tribe  had 
long  been  made  the  spoil  of  railway  corporations  and  In 
dian  rings.  I  took  the  lead  in  defeating  monstrous  schemes 
of  land  bounty  which  threatened  the  complete  overthrow  of 
the  policy  of  our  preemption  and  homestead  laws.  Before  I 
left  Congress  I  secured  the  legislative  forfeiture  of  a  large 
land  grant  in  Louisiana  for  non-compliance  with  the  con 
ditions  on  which  it  was  made,  and  did  my  best  to  se 
cure  several  similar  enactments,  which  the  railway  lobby 
defeated.  I  am  sure  I  was  instrumental  in  saving  large 
areas  of  the  public  land  from  the  clutches  of  monopo 
lists  through  an  amendment  to  several  important  land  grants 
requiring  the  lands  to  be  sold  to  actual  settlers  only, 
in  quantities  not  greater  than  a  quarter  section  to  one  person, 
and  for  a  price  not  exceeding  $2.50  per  acre.  It  is  true  that 
during  the  war,  and  what  we  call  "the  development  period," 
I  united  with  men  of  all  parties  in  voting  for  most  of  the  rail 
road  grants.  The  value  of  the  lands  given  away  was  not 
then  known  as  it  is  now,  while  we  were  in  the  midst  of  a 
struggle  for  national  existence  or  grappling  with  the  difficult 
problems  it  involved.  Hasty  legislation  was  the  result.  The 
need  of  highways  to  the  Pacific  was  deemed  imperative,  and 
unattainable  without  very  large  grants  of  land.  No  one  then 
dreamed  of  the  mismanagement  of  these  great  trusts  which 
we  have  since  witnessed,  while  the  universal  expectation  was 


REPLIES  TO  HON.   CARL  SCHURZ.  295 

that  the  lands  would  be  restored  to  the  public  domain  on  fail 
ure  to  comply  with  the  conditions  of  the  grants,  nor  did  any  one 
then  foresee  the  rapid  settlement  and  development  of  our  west 
ern  states  and  territories,  through  which  the  building  of  rail 
ways  would  become  a  work  of  practical  accomplishment  with 
out  the  aid  of  the  government.  I  did  not,  however,  vote  for  the 
grant  to  the  Northern  Pacific  Company,  nor  for  its  revival 
after  forfeiture,  while  I  nail  another  of  your  falsehoods  to  the 
counter  when  I  tell  you  I  voted  and  spoke  against  the  Texas 
Pacific  grant,  which  occupies  the  front  rank  as  a  railway  con 
spiracy  to  cheat  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

The  truth  is,  that  Congress  has  been  far  more  recreant  in 
dealing  with  forfeited  lands  than  in  granting  them  in  the  first 
place,  while  the  power  of  these  railways  over  our  legislation 
for  years  past  has  only  been  matched  by  their  power  over  the 
executive  and  judicial  departments  of  the  government.  The 
resulting  mischiefs  to  the  country  have  proceeded  less  from 
the  land-grant  system  than  from  its  shameful  mal-adminis- 
tration  by  such  officials  as  yourself  since  I  went  out  of  Con 
gress  in  1871.  All  this  will  be  sufficiently  disagreeable  to 
you  by  the  contrast  it  will  suggest  with  your  own  record,  but 
it  will  not,  I  hope,  be  offensive  to  the  general  reader. 

The  closing  part  of  your  letter,  in  which  you  absurdly 
impute  my  long-standing  hostility  to  railway  domination  to 
the  failure  of  the  railroad  kings  to  purchase  my  services,  is 
very  characteristic.  You  judge  me  by  yourself;  but  I  can 
not  return  the  compliment  thus  unwittingly  bestowed,  for  I 
have  shown  that  they  did  purchase  your  services,  and  found 
them  an  exceedingly  profitable  investment.  To  their  inter 
ests  you  have  been  preeminently  faithful.  When  I  made  my 
passing  allusion  to  you  in  the  North  American  Review  I  did 
not  dream  that  the  administration  of  your  department  had 
been  so  thoroughly  bad.  If  at  any  moment  you  seem  to  have 
swerved  from  your  perfect  loyalty  to  these  corporations,  you 
atoned  for  it  so  promptly,  and  by  such  unequivocal  acts  of 
fidelity,  as  to  remove  all  possible  ground  of  suspicion.  Your 
devotion  to  them  has  had  the  quality  of  a  religion.  It  is  true 


296  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

you  have  never  been  wanting  in  professions  of  devotion  to 
purity  and  reform.  You  have  always  mustered  in  the  robes 
of  dignity  and  decency.  The  moral  felonies  of  your  admin 
istration  have  been  pretty  successfully  sugar-coated.  In  the 
externals  of  your  position  you  have,  in  fact,  appeared  re 
markably  well  as  a  member  of  the  Hayes  administration, 
which  you  aided  in  inflicting  upon  the  country  ;  but  I  am 
confident  that  no  Secretary  of  the  Interior  since  the  organiza 
tion  of  the  department,  save  Jacob  Thompson,  has  been  so 
thoroughly  recreant  to  his  trust  as  yourself.  He  made  the 
department  a  bureau  in  the  service  of  treason,  while  you  only 
made  it  a  feeder  to  the  railways.  This  you  did  splendidly ; 
and  for  the  facts  which  justify  my  statements  the  country  is 
indebted  to  you  for  attacking  my  article  in  the  North  Ameri 
can  Review,  and  thus  prompting  me  to  lay  them  before  the 
people.  They  form  a  part  only  of  your  record,  but  they  are 
amply  sufficient  to  strip  you  of  your  disguises  and  cover  you 
with  shame.  GEORGE  W.  JULIAN. 


THE  LIMNING  OF  STEPHEN  W.  DORSET. 


PUBLISHED    IN  VARIOUS   LEADING   NEWSPAPERS    IN  JANU 
ARY,   1888. 


In  the  October  number  of  the  North  American  Review, 
Stephen  W.  Dorsey  makes  what  he  calls  a  "rejoinder"  to 
my  article  on  "Land  Stealing  in  New  Mexico."  I  find  it  a 
palpable  misnomer,  for  he  does  not  even  attempt  a  reply  to 
the  mass  of  facts  which  constitute  my  indictment  against  the 
rogues  of  this  territory.  A  brief  notice  of  his  performance 
may,  however,  be  deemed  proper.  In  some  respects  Mr. 
Dorsey  is  a  formidable  antagonist.  He  once  held  a  seat  in 
the  National  Senate  from  the  state  of  Arkansas,  where  he  will 
long  be  remembered  as  the  genius  who  happily  blended  in 
himself  the  traits  both  of  the  carpet-bagger  and  the  scalawag. 
He  has  held  high  places  and  wielded  large  powers  as  a  party 
leader.  He  has  shown  uncommon  ability  in  exploiting  the 
mail  service  of  the  United  States  and  eluding  the  hand  of 
justice.  Probably  no  man  in  the  Union  is  so  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  the  whole  business  of  "land  stealing."  In 
this  interesting  field  of  activity  I  believe  he  has  a  national 
reputation  as  an  expert.  His  selection  as  the  apologist  and 
defender  of  the  tribe  of  which  he  is  the  acknowledged  chief, 
is  therefore  altogether  appropriate,  and  their  cause  will  have 
to  be  abandoned  as  utterly  hopeless  if  he  is  not  able  to  de 
fend  it. 

Mr.  Dorsey  damages  his  case  in  the  outset  by  his  bad 
temper.  It  is  not  a  symptom  of  innocence.  His  personal 
abuse  is  too  fervent  and  emotional.  He  should  have  remem 
bered  that  the  spaniel  under  the  lash  only  yelps  when  it  is 
touchingly  applied.  The  article  to  Jwhich  he  pretends  to 


298  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

reply  was  dispassionately  written.  I  only  referred  to  indi 
viduals  where  my  task  made  it  necessary,  dealing  entirely 
in  facts  ;  and  if  Mr.  Dorsey  had  kept  cool,  and  applied  him 
self  honestly  to  the  work  of  answering  them,  he  might  have 
had  the  sympathy,  if  not  the  respect,  of  the  public. 

He  also  weakens  his  cause  by  dragging  party  politics 
into  the  discussion.  He  has  done  this  without  any  provoca 
tion  whatever.  His  effort  to  show  that  Democrats,  as  well 
as  Republicans,  are  involved  in  the  exposures  I  have  made, 
is  not  a  response  to  anything  I  said.  I  have  no  dispute  with 
him  on  that  point.  My  article  is  thoroughly  non-partisan. 
In  overhauling  the  frauds  connected  with  Spanish  and  Mex 
ican  grants  in  New  Mexico,  I  struck  right  and  left,  pursuing 
every  ugly  fact  into  its  hiding-place,  without  the  least  con 
cern  as  to  whether  it  would  damage  this  party  or  that.  I 
think  the  purpose  of  Mr.  Dorsey  in  thus  wandering  away 
from  the  real  issue  is  perfectly  transparent.  He  has  become 
tired  of  hanging  on  the  outer-wall  of  politics,  and  hopes  to 
regain  his  lost  place  of  power  in  the  Republican  party.  I 
sympathize  with  him  in  his  distress,  but  he  will  find  himself 
utterly  disappointed.  The  days  of  his  political  glory  are 
past,  because,  as  I  am  convinced,  the  leaders  and  masses  of 
all  parties  regard  him  as  hopelessly  pilloried  before  the  na 
tion  as  a  star  route  thief.  He  smells  of  the  penitentiary,  and 
no  fumigation  is  possible.  To  every  honest  man  in  the  re 
public  the  mention  of  his  name  suggests  the  striped  costume 
of  the  crew  whose  fellowship  he  escaped  through  the  miscar 
riage  of  public  justice. 

Mr.  Dorsey  damages  his  cause  still  more  fatally  by  his 
absolute  recklessness  in  dealing  with  matters  of  fact.  In 
attacking  me  personally  he  succeeds  in  missing  the  truth  in 
every  statement  he  makes.  In  pretending  to  give  my  pedi 
gree,  tor  instance,  he  says  that  nearly  fifty  years  ago  I  was 
elected  to  office  as  a  pro-slavery  Democrat,  and  that,  de 
feated  for  re-election,  I  left  my  party.  He  also  says  that 
after  I  had  posed  as  a  Free-soiler  I  became  a  conservative 
Whig.  These  ridiculous  statements  will  only  provoke'  the 


THE  LIMNING  OF  STEPHEN  W.   DORSEY.  299 

laughter  of  my  old  friends.  He  knows  that  after  beginning 
my  political  life  as  a  Whig  I  became  a  member  and  a  leader 
of  the  Free-soil  party  in  1848,  and  so  continued  till  it  was 
merged  in  the  Republican  party  in  1856  ;  and  that  I  remained 
in  that  party  till  the  Greeley  campaign  of  1872,  when  I 
joined  its  fathers  and  founders  in  walking  out  of  it  on  ac 
count  of  its  shameless  misdeeds,  in  which  Mr.  Dorsey  was 
disgracefully  conspicuous.  He  says  that  in  my  eye  "there 
was  no  public  crime  of  which  Ulysses  S.  Grant  was  not 
guilty,"  and  that  to  his  personal  knowledge  I  denounced 
General  Garfield  at  every  cross-road  in  Indiana  as  a  "thief," 
a  "bribe-taker,"  a  "bribe-giver"  and  a  "perjurer."  The 
extravagance  of  these  statements  destroys  them,  and  Mr. 
Dorsey  knew  them  to  be  base  fabrications  when  he  penned 
them.  I  have,  in  past  years,  criticised  the  administration  of 
General  Grant  and  some  of  the  acts  of  General  Garfield,  but 
in  doing  so  I  did  not  appear  in  the  role  of  a  blackguard,  in 
which  Mr.  Dorsey  is  always  a  very  shining  figure.  I  refer 
to  these  and  kindred  fabrications  about  myself  solely  as  illus 
trations  of  the  marvelous  bent  of  his  mind  towards  the  habit 
of  lying,  and  not  by  any  means  in  self-defense.  In  this  case 
Mr.  Dorsey  is  the  defendant  and  culprit,  and  I  frankly  con 
fess  myself  hopelessly  lost  if  I  need  to  be  defended  against 
any  conceivable  charges  emanating  from  such  a  source. 
They  can  only  tend  to  enthrone  me  in  the  hearts  of  all  hon 
est  men. 

He  asserts  that  mainly  through  my  exertions  nearly  four 
hundred  citizens  of  New  Mexico  have  been  indicted  for  land 
frauds,  and  that  every  man  tried  has  been  acquitted.  He 
says,  "  there  is  not  a  grain  or  shadow  of  truth  that  there  have 
been,  or  are  now,  frauds  committed  to  any  extent  in  New 
Mexico  under  the  homestead  and  preemption  laws."  Mr. 
Dorsey  makes  Gulliver  respectable.  As  to  his  "  four  hun 
dred  citizens  of  New  Mexico"  (if  there  were  so  many),  he 
knows  that  I  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  their  indict 
ment,  and  that  this  was  the  work  of  the  grand  juries,  aided 
by  the  district  attorney  and  the  special  agents  of  the  govern- 


3OO  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

ment.  He  knows,  also,  that  quite  a  number  of  these  men 
were  convicted,  and  that  the  great  body  of  them  escaped 
solely  through  the  saving  grace  of  the  statute  of  limitations, 
which  innocent  men  would  not  have  pleaded.  The  proof  of 
their  guilt  was  ample,  and  no  man  knows  this  better  than 
Mr.  Dorsey,  who  is  exceedingly  familiar  with  the  work  of 
acquiring  title  to  the  public  lands  through  the  perjury  and 
subornation  of  perjury  of  scullions  and  dummies  employed 
for  this  service.  In  this  prostitution  of  our  land  laws  to  the 
base  uses  of  theft  and  plunder,  I  do  not  speak  at  random, 
but  on  the  authority  of  ascertained  facts.  I  shall  only  refer 
to  the  proceedings  of  a  single  term  of  the  United  States 
Court,  held  in  Santa  Fe,  last  spring. 

On  the  trial  of  numerous  parties  for  perjury  and  suborna 
tion  of  perjury  in  procuring  land  titles,  and  conspiracy  to  de 
fraud  the  government  through  the  corrupt  use  of  our  land 
laws,  eighty-eight  persons  availed  themselves  of  the  statute 
of  limitations,  and  thus  confessed  their  guilt.  The  testimony 
developed  the  fact  that  many  of  these  men  had  been  paid 
from  five  to  ten  dollars  each  to  sign  certain  title  papers,  and 
that  they  never  saw  the  land  and  never  attempted  to  occupy 
or  improve  it,  while  the  men  who  hired  them  to  swear  falsely 
sold  the  tracts  to  an  Iowa  cattle  company.  All  this  is  well 
known  to  Mr.  Dorsey,  and  that  these  men  would  not  have 
escaped  the  penitentiary  if  the  Republican  officials  of  the  ter 
ritory  had  done  their  duty  in  securing  indictments  in  season. 
But  Mr.  Dorsey  says  "there  is  not  a  grain  or  shadow  01 
truth"  in  the  charge  that  land  frauds  have  been  committed 
in  New  Mexico  to  "any  extent."  In  speaking  of  an  accom 
plished  scoundrel  of  the  last  century,  Thomas  Carlyle  says 
"  there  was  not  truth  enough  in  him  to  make  a  real  lie  of." 
I  suspect  that  Mr.  Dorsey  is  his  lineal  descendant. 

But  hear  him  further.  In  speaking  of  the  right  of  the 
citizen  to  take  160  acres  of  land,  and  pay  for  it  as  designated 
by  law,  at  the  rate  of  $1.25  per  acre,  he  says  :  "  The  person 
entering  this  land  must  swear  that  he  is  doing  it  for  his  own 
use  and  benefit,  and  not  with  the  view  of  selling  it,"  This 


THE  LIMNING  OF  STEPHEN  W.  DORSEY.  30! 

is  true  ;  but  in  the  cases  just  cited,  which  are  mere  samples 
of  New  Mexican  frauds,  the  men  who  pretended  to  enter 
their  tracts  swore  falsely,  and  the  lands  passed  at  once  into 
the  clutches  of  a  cattle  company,  just  as  Mr.  Dorsey  is  well 
understood  to  have  secured  the  title  to  his  lands  on  the  Una 
de  Gato  grant,  and  he  defends  this  disgraceful  perversion  of 
the  preemption  law.  He  says  :  "Before  the  title  passes  to 
the  preemptor  he  pays  the  government  the  price  of  the  land," 
and  that  "the  government  is  not  defrauded."  It  is  true  the 
government  does  not  lose  the  price  of  the  land,  and,  there 
fore,  according  to  this  logic,  if  Mr.  Dorsey  can  hire  one 
hundred  middle-men  for  a  few  dollars  each  to  acquire  that 
many  quarter  sections  of  land  by  perjury,  and  convey  them 
to  him,  it  is  a  legitimate  business.  The  preemption  law,  it 
is  true,  only  permits  one  person  to  acquire  160  acres  of  land, 
but  on  the  Dorsey  plan  he  can  acquire  100,000,  and  that  law 
thus  becomes  the  instrument  through  which  the  great  curse 
of  monopoly,  which  it  was  designed  to  prevent,  is  fascened 
upon  the  country.  Everybody  knows  that  the  preemption 
law  subordinates  the  question  of  revenue  to  the  policy  of  ac 
tual  settlement  and  tillage  in  small  homesteads.  When  it 
was  passed,  in  1841,  the  treasury  was  full  to  overflowing 
from  the  proceeds  of  sales  of  the  public  lands  in  large  bodies 
for  speculative  purposes,  thus  fatally  hindering  the  settlement 
and  development  of  the  country.  After  a  long  wrangle  in 
Congress,  our  ugly  "  surplus"  was  divided  among  the  states, 
and  we  entered  upon  a  new  dispensation,  inspired  by  the 
purpose  thereafter  to  dedicate  the  public  lands  to  the  use  of 
landless  men  who  would  personally  appropriate  them  in 
in  limited  allotments.  Not  revenue,  but  the  settlement  of  the 
lands  was  the  dominating  idea  ;  and  this  was  afterwards  still 
more  strongly  emphasized  in  the  passage  of  the  homestead 
law.  But  the  moral  vision  of  Mr.  Dorsey  sees  nothing  wrong 
in  nullifying  both  these  laws,  and  making  them  the  engines 
of  monopoly  and  robbery,  through  the  detestable  agencies 
of  bribery  and  perjury.  As  I  have  shown,  he  denies,  abso 
lutely,  that  any  frauds  have  been  committed  under  them  in 


3O2  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

New  Mexico,  and  then  brazenly  defends  the  very  villainies 
I  have  charged  upon  him  and  his  kind.  Such  is  the  gospel 
of  "land  stealing,"  according  to  St.  Stephen.  It  is  Dorsey- 
ism,  pure  and  simple,  in  its  unveiled  ghastliness  ;  and  I  turn 
away  irom  it,  and  mercifully  draw  the  curtain  over  it,  while 
I  proceed  with  my  task. 

He  asserts  that  I  have  charged  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  with  joining  hands  with  the  plunderers  of  the 
public  domain.  There  is  not  a  sentence  or  word  in  my  arti 
cle  which  can  be  tortured  into  any  such  meaning,  and  Mr. 
Dorsey,  who  carefully  read  it  for  the  purpose  of  reply,  knows 
this  to  be  true. 

He  says  that  my  article  implies  that  all  the  Secretaries 
of  the  Interior,  from  1861  to  1885,  a^  tne  Commissioners  of  the 
General  Land  Office,  and  all  my  predecessors  in  office,  were 
dishonest  and  corrupt  men.  This  statement  is  a  gross  ex 
aggeration,  and  it  is,  moreover,  a  mere  begging  of  the  ques 
tion.  Quite  a  number  of  the  officials  referred  to  are  involved 
in  my  exposure,  and  the  records  of  the  government  will  iden 
tify  them.  Are  my  facts  authentic?  Mr.  Dorsey  makes  no 
attempt  to  controvert  them,  which  he  certainly  would  have 
done  if  he  had  been  able,  but  with  uplifted  hands  and  the 
whine  of  a  convict,  begs  that  the  officials  whom  I  have  ar 
raigned  as  his  accomplices  shall  be  shielded  from  the  right 
of  search ! 

Mr.  Doi'sey  says  the  Committee  on  Public  Lands  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  during  the  time  I  was  its  chairman, 
reported  favorably  bills  granting  land  to  railroad  corpora 
tions  covering  more  than  half  of  all  the  land  granted  to  rail 
roads  in  the  United  States,  which  bills  passed  Congress  as  a 
result  of  such  report.  In  these  statements  he  does  not  refer 
to  the  vast  areas  granted  to  our  great  trans-continental  rail 
ways,  respecting  which  he  makes  no  charges  against  me. 
He  speaks  only  of  the  fertile  lands  granted  in  Illinois,  Iowa, 
and  other  Western  states,  which  were  not  granted  to  railroad 
corporations  at  all,  but  to  the  states  themselves.  The  entire 
aggregate  of  these  lands  was  a  small  fraction  only  of  the 


THE  LIMNING  OF  STEPHEN  W.  DORSEY.  303 

many  millions  granted  to  our  Pacific  railways  by  bills  re 
ported  from  the  Committee  on  Pacific  Railroads,  and  not  by 
the  Committee  on  Public  Lands.  Mr.  Dorsey  should  also 
have  remembered  that,  even  as  to  these  moderate  grants  for 
which  he  holds  me  responsible,  I  had  only  one  vote  as  a 
member  of  the  committee,  a  majority  of  which  made  the  re 
port,  and  that  I  could  not,  of  course,  be  made  responsible  for 
the  action  of  the  two  houses  of  Congress  on  the  passage  of 
the  bills  reported.  Moreover,  Mr.  Dorsey,  himself,  says  the 
land  grants  in  these  cases  "  were  for  the  best  interests  of  the 
whole  country,"  and  thus  defends  my  action.  But,  let  me 
admit,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  some  of  my  votes 
are  indefensible.  Does  that  prove  that  he  is  not  a  land- 
stealer? 

Mr.  Dorsey  further  holds  me  responsible  for  the  provision 
in  all  our  railroad  grants,  compelling  the  settlers  on  the  re 
served  sections  to  pay  $2.50  per  acre  for  their  lands  instead 
of  the  ordinary  price,  $1.25  per  acre.  He  says  I  "thus 
added  more  than  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  to  the  bur 
den  of  the  settlers  who  sought  homes  along  the  proposed 
lines  of  the  railway,"  while  I  put  an  additional  "two  hundred 
millions  of  dollars  into  the  pockets  of  the  railroad  lobby."  I 
think  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  this  example  of  parliamentary 
almightiness  has  no  parallel  in  the  annals  of  the  civilized 
world.  Both  houses  of  Congress  and  the  President  of  the 
United  States  were  my  playthings,  and  my  dialbolism  had 
full  sweep  from  1850,  when  the  first  land  grant  was  made, 
till  I  left  Congress  in  1871  !  Such  flashes  of  imbecility  are 
really  somewhat  dazzling  and  spectacular,  but  life  is  too 
short  to  be  wasted  in  a  fight  with  dissolving  views. 

I  must  not  conclude  these  illustrations  of  the  ethical  side 
of  Mr.  Dorsey's  character  without  noticing  the  display  he 
makes  of  himself  in  connection  with  the  Una  de  Gato  grant, 
in  which  he  is  personally  involved.  This  is  what  I  said  on 
that  subject  in  my  article : 

"The  area  of  this  grant,  according  to  Mr.  Dorsey^its 
claimant,  was  nearly  600,000  acres.  It  was  reserved  from 


304  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

settlement,  and  is  so  reserved  to-day  by  the  act  of  1854  > 
when  the  forgery  of  the  grant  was  demonstrated  in  1879, 
he  thought  it  unsafe  to  rely  upon  that  title,  he  determined  to 
avail  himself  of  the  homestead  and  preemption  laws.  This 
he  could  not  legally  do,  because  the  land  was  reserved  ;  but 
the  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office  was  touched 
by  his  misfortune,  and  in  defiance  of  law  ordered  the  land  to 
be  surveyed  and  opened  to  settlement.  Mr.  Dorsey,  who 
was  already  in  possession  of  thousands  of  acres  of  the  choic 
est  lands  in  the  tract,  at  once  sent  out  his  squads  of  hench 
men,  who  availed  themselves  of  the  forms  of  the  preemption 
and  homestead  laws  in  acquiring  pretended  titles,  which  were 
conveyed  to  him  according  to  arrangements  previously  agreed 
upon.  No  record  of  this  unauthorized  action  of  the  Com 
missioner  is  to  be  found  in  the  land  office.  What  was  done 
was  done  verbally,  and  in  the  dark,  and  nothing  is  now 
known  of  the  transaction  but  the  fact  of  its  occurrence,  and 
the  intimate  relations  then  existing  between  Mr.  Dorsey  and 
the  Commissioner  and  his  chief  of  surveys.  Of  course,  he  and 
his  associates  in  this  business  have  no  title  to  the  lands  thus 
acquired,  and  their  entries  should  be  cancelled,  not  only  be 
cause  the  land  was  reserved  from  sale  by  act  of  Congress, 
but  because  the  entries  were  fraudulently  made,  as  will  be 
shown  by  investigations  now  in  progress." 

These  are  exactly  the  facts  as  shown  by  official  docu 
ments.  Now,  how  does  Mr.  Dorsey  answer  me?  Upon  in 
vestigating  the  title  of  this  grant  he  says  he  become  satisfied 
that  it  was  fraudulent.  When  did  he  make  this  investiga 
tion,  and  reach  this  conclusion?  The  records  of  my  office 
and  of  the  interior  department  give  no  answer  to  the  ques 
tion.  They  do  not  show  that  he  ever  made  an  investigation, 
but  the  contrary.  He  says  he  wrote  to  the  Hon.  Carl  Schurz, 
then  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  stating  substantially  all  the 
facts  in  his  possession  respecting  the  grant,  and  asked  him  to 
send  a  special  agent  to  make  a  careful  investigation,  and 
turned  over  to  the  Secretary  all  the  papers  in  his  possession. 
Unfortunately  for  Mr.  Dorsey,  these  statements  are  unsup- 


THE  LIMNING  OF  STEPHEN  W.   DORSEY.  305 

ported  by  the  records  of  the  land  department,  and  contra 
dicted  by  them.  They  show  that  he  persisted  in  his  claim 
for  years  following  the  first  agitation  of  the  validity  of  his 
title,  and  up  to  January,  1879,  when  the  forgery  of  the  grant 
was  demonstrated.  He  did  nothing  whatever  in  instigat 
ing  the  inquiry  which  led  to  this  demonstration,  which  in 
quiry  was  set  on  foot  by  Lewis  Kingman  and  Henry  W. 
Arms  in  the  year  1877.  The  papers  show  that  he  was  dis 
pleased  with  their  intermeddling  with  his  title,  and  that  it 
was  solely  at  the  instance  of  these  men  that  the  land  office 
directed  an  investigation  to  be  made.  In  the  light  of  these 
facts  the  reader  can  judge  for  himself  as  to  Mr.  Dorsey's 
reverence  for  the  truth  when  he  says:  "I  exposed  the 
fraudulent  nature  of  the  grant  with  which  Mr.  Julian  at 
tempted  to  link  my  name  unfavorably!"  The  audacity  of 
this  statement  is  fascinating.  It  is  charmingly  satanic,  and  it 
settles  the  fact  that  Mr.  Dorsey,  in  his  way,  is  a  genius. 

But  he  says  he  applied  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  to 
have  the  land  within  the  bounds  of  this  fraudulent  grant 
thrown  open  for  settlement,  and  that  it  was  done  according 
ly.  This  is  what  I  said  in  my  article  ;  but  I  stated,  further, 
that  the  land  department  had  no  power  to  do  this.  One  Sur 
veyor-General  had  pronounced  the  grant  valid,  and  another 
had  declared  it  to  be  a  forgery.  Congress  alone  could  de 
termine  the  question,  and  the  land  was  absolutely  reserved 
by  law  in  the  meantime.  Secretary  Schurz  and  Commis 
sioner  Williamson  knew  this  perfectly,  and  for  this  reason, 
doubtless,  no  written  order  for  the  survey  and  sale  of  these 
lands  was  made,  and  the  business  was  done  "  in  the  dark." 

Nor  is  there  any  mystery  about  this  action.  Mr.  Dorsey 
was  then  a  power  in  politics.  He  had  neared  the  summit  of 
his  remarkable  ascendency.  It  was  in  the  following  year 
(1880)  that  his  genius  lighted  the  way  to  a  national  victory 
for  the  Republicans,  for  which  he  was  banqueted  and  lion 
ized  as  "  the  Napoleon  who  carried  Indiana."  When  such 
a  man  wanted  the  Republican  officials  of  the  land  department 
to  violate  the  law  to  enable  him  to  appropriate  a  large  body  of 
20 


306  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

public  lands  in  furtherance  of  his  rapacity,  they  did  not  dare 
say  no,  and  the  robbery  "was  done."  Mr.  Dorsey  knows 
all  this,  but  makes  no  defense.  He  admits  the  action  of  the 
land  department,  in  response  to  his  request,  but  stands  mute 
as  to  its  illegality.  He  knows,  and  so  do  Carl  Schurz  and 
J.  A.  Williamson,  that  that  action  was  totally  unauthorized 
and  sneakingly  performed,  and  that  the  lands  acquired  by 
him  and  his  allies  under  an  illegal  order  now  rightfully  be 
long  to  the  United  States.  In  these  statements  I  am  sup 
ported  by  the  records  of  the  government,  and  no  lawyer  will 
attempt  to  controvert  them.  In  such  a  dilemma  as  this,  Mr. 
Dorsey  should  have  remained  silent,  both  on  his  own  account 
and  in  the  interest  of  parties  claiming  title  under  him. 

Mr.  Dorsey  concludes  his  paper  with  a  digression  upon 
the  water  supply  of  New  Mexico,  and  its  "physical  phenom 
ena  of  climate  and  topography ; "  and  he  insists  that  with 
very  slight  exceptions  the  land  is  fit  only  for  grazing  and 
mining.  This  is  not  the  conclusion  of  a  disinterested  ex 
plorer  and  devotee  of  science,  after  patient  investigation,  but 
the  plea  of  a  land  stealer,  seeking  to  make  the  physical  pe 
culiarities  of  the  country  the  scape-goat  of  his  sins.  The 
wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,  can  see  this.  If  he  could 
make  the  public  believe  that  New  Mexico  is  worthless  for 
agriculture,  it  would  go  far  to  exonerate  him  from  the  charge 
of  robbing  the  government  and  plundering  poor  settlers 
through  the  machinery  of  the  homestead  and  preemption 
laws.  It  would  also  tend  to  smooth  his  way  to  still  more  for 
midable  schemes  of  robbery  as  a  great  cattle  king,  through 
which  he  and  his  confederates  could  trample  down  and  crush 
out  both  the  stock-grower  of  small  means  and  the  home 
steader,  and  thus  bring  the  people  of  the  territory  more  com 
pletely  under  the  yoke  of  a  grand  Brotherhood  of  Thieves. 
The  trouble  with  Mr.  Dorsey  is  that  he  believes  the  people 
too  stupid  to  see  through  the  game  he  is  playing.  It  does 
not  occur  to  him  that  owing  to  his  unfortunate  survival  of  his 
own  conscience  nobody  will  accept  either  his  theories  or  his 
facts.  Although  his  reputation  for  successful  and  brilliant 


THE  LIMNING  OF  STEPHEN  W.  DORSEY.         307 

rascality  is  continental,  he  impudently  takes  the  witness 
stand  as  if  he  expected  the  public  would  believe  him.  He  is, 
perhaps,  the  most  picturesque  political  reprobate  now  on  pub 
lic  exhibition  ;  but  he  seems  wholly  unconscious  of  the  fact 
that  the  interest  felt  in  him  is  purely  historic  and  -post-mortem, 
and  that  the  people  only  desire  to  get  some  idea  of  his  moral 
physiognomy,  and  what  may  be  called  the  scenery  of  his  ca 
reer.  I  trust  I  have  done  them  some  service  in  this  direc 
tion  ;  but  it  has  been  the  chief  purpose  of  this  paper  to  pene 
trate  the  dry-rot  of  his  self-complacency,  and  by  a  little 
wholesome  vivisection  to  help  him  catch  at  least  a  glimpse  of 
his  real  lineaments  as  others  see  them,  and  as  indelibly 
painted  by  himself  in  the  somber  pigment  of  his  evil  deeds. 
If  I  have  failed  in  these  friendly  offices  it  will  be  Mr.  Dor- 
sey's  misfortune,  and  not  my  fault. 

GEORGE  W.  JULIAN. 


WEBSTER  AND  ELAINE  :  HISTORIC  JUSTICE. 


[From  the  Magazine  of  Western  History.] 

Mr.  Elaine's  ''Twenty  Years  of  Congress"  can  not  fail 
to  interest  men  of  all  parties  and  opinions.  For  more  than  a 
dozen  years  he  has  been  the  most  conspicuous  and  idolized 
leader  of  his  party,  as  well  as  the  most  picturesque  figure  in 
American  politics  ;  and  what  he  writes  is  sure  to  command 
attention,  whether  men  love  him  or  hate  him.  His  style  is 
always  marked  by  clearness,  vigor  and  animation,  and  some 
times  by  felicitous  expression.  Indeed,  his  literary  quality 
is  very  remarkable  for  one  whose  life  has  been  completely 
absorbed  in  the  dismal  strife  and  turmoil  of  practical  politics. 
The  personalities  of  his  history  are  particularly  attractive, 
and  the  vengeance  he  occasionally  takes  upon  his  enemies  is 
made  the  more  galling  by  the  fine  flavor  of  judicial  fairness 
with  which  he  cunningly  seeks  to  disguise  the  real  animus  of 
his  statements.  His  two  bulky  volumes  will  undoubtedly 
play  their  part  in  the  making  of  history  and  the  molding  of 
men's  opinions  ;  and  to  this  extent  it  becomes  a  duty  to  ex 
pose  the  more  serious  errors  of  his  work. 

In  speaking  of  the  course  of  Daniel  Webster  in  1850,  in 
Mr.  Elaine's  first  volume,  on  pages  270-271,  he  uses  this 
language : 

"When  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  repealed  and  the 
territories  of  the  United  States  north  of  the  line  of  thirty-six 
degrees  thirty  minutes  were  left  without  slavery  inhibition  or 
restriction,  the  agitation  began  which  ended  in  the  over 
throw  of  the  Democratic  party  and  the  election  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln  to  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States.  It  will,  there 
fore,  always  remain  as  one  of  the  singular  contradictions  in 
the  political  history  of  the  country  that,  after  seven  years  of 
almost  exclusive  agitation  on  this  one  question,  the  Republi- 


WEBSTER  AND  BLAINE  I    HISTORIC  JUSTICE.  309 

cans,  the  first  time  they  had  the  power,  as  a  distinctive  po 
litical  organization,  to  enforce  the  cardinal  article  of  their 
political  creeds  quietly  and  unanimously  abandoned  it. 
And  they  abandoned  it  without  a  word  of  explanation.  Mr. 
Sumner  and  Mr.  Wade  and  Mr.  Chandler,  the  most  radical 
men  in  the  Senate  on  the  Republican  side,  sat  still  and 
allowed  the  bill  to  be  passed  precisely  as  reported  by  James 
S.  Green,  of  Missouri,  who  had  been  the  ablest  defender  of 
the  Breckinridge  Democracy  in  that  body.  In  the  House 
Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  Mr.  Owen  Lovejoy,  the  Washburns 
and  all  the  other  radical  Republicans  vouchsafed  no  word 
explanatory  of  their  extraordinary  change  of  position.  *  *  * 
"If,  indeed,  it  be  fairly  and  frankly  admitted,  as  was  tKe 
fact,  that  receding  from  the  anti-slavery  position  was  part 
of  the  conciliation  policy  of  the  hour,  and  that  the  Republi 
cans  di4  it  the  more  readily  because  they  had  full  faith  that 
slavery  would  never  secure  a  foothold  in  any  of  the  territories 
named,  it  must  likewise  be  admitted  that  the  Republican 
party  took  precisely  the  same  ground  held  by  Mr.  Webster 
in  1850,  and  acted  from  precisely  the  same  motives  that  in 
spired  the  seventh  of  March  speech.  Mr.  Webster  main 
tained  for  New  Mexico  only  what  Mr.  Sumner  now  admitted 
for  Colorado  and  Nevada.  Mr.  Webster  acted  from  the 
same  considerations  that  now  influenced  and  controlled  the 
judgment  of  Mr.  Seward.  As  matter  of  historic  justice,  the 
Republicans  who  waived  the  anti-slavery  restriction  should, 
at  least,  have  offered  and  recorded  their  apology  for  any 
animadversions  they  had  made  upon  the  course  of  Mr.  Web 
ster  ten  years  before.  Every  prominent  Republican  senator 
who  agreed  in  1861  to  abandon  the  principle  of  the  Wilmot 
proviso  in  organizing  the  territories  of  Colorado  and  Nevada 
had,  in  1850,  heaped  reproach  upon  Mr.  Webster  for  not  in 
sisting  upon  the  same  principle  for  the  same  territory.  Be 
tween  the  words  of  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Sumner  in  the  one 
crisis,  and  their  votes  in  the  other,  there  is  a  discrepancy  for 
which  it  would  have  been  well  to  leave  on  record  an  ade 
quate  explanation.  The  danger  to  the  Union,  in  which  they 


3IO  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

found  a  good  reason  for  receding  from  the  anti-slavery  re 
striction  on  the  territories,  had  been  cruelly  denied  to  Mr. 
Webster  as  a  justifying  motive.  They  found  in  him  only  a 
guilty  recreancy  to  sacred  principle  for  the  same  act  which  in 
themselves  was  inspired  by  devotion  to  the  Union." 

Mr.  Elaine,  in  his  second  volume,  returns  to  the  subject, 
and  while  skillfully  using  his  brush  in  whitewashing  Mr. 
Webster,  speaks  with  passionate  emphasis  of  the  injustice 
done  him  by  Republican  leaders  who  "literally  followed  in 
his  footsteps"  in  1861,  and  "should  have  recorded  their 
apology  ; "  and  he  declares  that  "  it  is  seldom  that  history  so 
exactly  repeats  itself." 

This  unqualified  defense  of  Mr.  Webster's  action  in  1850, 
by  the  great  leader  of  the  Republican  party,  is  as  remarkable 
as  his  assault  upon  the  foremost  representatives  of  that  party 
in  1861.  Let  me  refer  to  both  epochs  in  our  history  and 
point  out  the  strange  confusion  of  facts  and  confounding  of 
moral  distinctions  which  disfigure  the  passages  I  have  quoted. 

The  war  with  Mexico,  which  gave  us  California,  Utah 
and  New  Mexico,  was  instigated  by  the  South  for  the  pur 
pose  of  extending  the  area  of  slavery ;  and  the  question  in 
volved  in  the  memorable  crisis  of  1850  was  whether  the  an 
cient  policy  of  congressional  restriction  should  be  applied  to 
these  territories,  or  surrendered  at  the  bidding  of  the  slave 
interest.  The  domination  of  that  interest  over  all  the  depart 
ments  of  the  government  had  been  unchecked  for  thirty 
years,  and  it  was  now  resolutely  bent  upon  the  accomplish 
ment  of  this  new  scheme  of  propagandism.  The  southern 
leaders  confidently  believed  that  slavery  would  be  established 
in  New  Mexico  and  Utah,  if  not  prohibited  by  law,  and  they 
had  on  their  side  the  whole  power  of  the  Federal  govern 
ment.  It  was  of  vital  moment  that  they  should  be  confronted 
with  absolute  courage.  The  Northern  states  should  have 
been  united  and  immovable  in  their  purpose  to  secure  these 
territories  for  freedom  and  free  labor.  The  threat  of  dis 
union  at  that  time  created  no  alarm  among  the  great  body  of 
the  people,  and  afforded  no  justification  for  the  surrender  of 


WEBSTER  AND  ELAINE  :    HISTORIC  JUSTICE.  3!  I 

a  fundamental  principle  to  which  all  parties  in  the  free  states 
had  been  solemnly  committed.  Mr.  Elaine,  in  his  second 
volume,  attempts  to  excuse  Mr.  Webster's  conduct  by  saying 
that  "  neither  he  nor  any  other  person  at  that  time  imagined 
the  possibility  of  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise  ;  "  but 
the  abandonment  of  the  Wilmot  proviso  naturally  led  to  that 
event.  It  belonged  to  the  logic  of  slavery,  which  made  ev 
ery  concession  to  its  demands  the  occasion  for  further  exac 
tions.  It  did  not  require  Mr.  Webster's  grasp  of  mind  to 
foresee  that  if  freedom  and  slavery  were  to  have  equal  rights 
in  New  Mexico  and  Utah,  the  same  principle  of  non-inter 
vention  by  Congress  would  be  asserted  for  the  territories 
north  of  thirty-six  degrees  thirty  minutes,  and  the  Missouri 
restriction  regarded  as  a  rock  of  offense  which  should  be  re 
moved.  This  idea  was  very  forcibly  illustrated  by  the  famous 
bill  of  Mr.  Douglas,  providing  governments  for  the  territories 
of  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  In  one  of  its  sections,  the  Missouri 
Compromise  of  1820  was  declared  to  be  inoperative  and  void, 
because  "  inconsistent  with  the  principle  of  non-intervention 
by  Congress  with  slavery  in  the  states  and  territories  as  recog 
nized  by  the  compromise  measures  of  1850."  This  provision 
was  not  an  accident,  but  the  obvious  effect  of  the  cause  which 
preceded  and  produced  it.  The  anti-slavery  leaders  of  that 
day  saw  this  clearly,  and  events  have  justified  the  assertion 
that  "the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  a  sprout 
from  Daniel  Webster's  political  grave;"  while  the  absolute 
necessity  of  the  Wilmot  proviso  was  demonstrated  by  the  raid 
into  Kansas  which  followed  its  abandonment  and  led  to  the 
tragedy  of  civil  war. 

The  simple  truth  is  that  Mr.  Webster's  sin  against  the 
clear  dictates  of  his  conscience  was  as  undeniable  as  it  was 
shocking  to  the  anti-slavery  opinion  of  the  Northern  states. 
The  transparent  fallacy  of  his  new-born  theory  that  "the  law 
of  nature,  the  law  of  the  formation  of  the  earth  "  and  "  the 
will  of  God  "  made  slavery  impossible  in  New  Mexico,  could 
deceive  no  man  having  the  power  to  think.  He  had  himself 
voted  for  the  Wilmot  proviso,  and  claimed  it  as  his  "  thun- 


312  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

der,"  when  "  the  law  of  the  formation  of  the  earth  "  was  just 
as  potent  as  on  the  seventh  of  March,  1850.  He  knew  that 
slavery,  without  much  regard  to  soil  or  climate,  had  estab 
lished  itself  wherever  it  had  not  been  interdicted  by  positive 
legislation,  and  then  suborned  the  law  into  its  support.  He 
could  not  forget  that  for  a  long  time  it  existed  in  his  own 
New  England,  and  that  our  fathers  wisely  thought  it  neces 
sary  to  prohibit  it  in  the  Northwest  territory,  extending  from 
the  Ohio  river  to  the  forty-ninth  parallel  of  latitude.  He 
knew  that  slavery  did  exist  in  New  Mexico  till  it  was  abol 
ished  by  law,  and  that  leading  men  of  the  South,  quite  as 
familiar  with  "  the  law  of  physical  geography"  as  himself, 
believed  it  to  be  peculiarly  adapted  to  slave  labor.  He  knew 
that  able  lawyers  were  divided  in  opinion  on  the  question 
whether  the  law  of  Mexico,  abolishing  slavery  in  that  coun 
try,  would  operate  in  the  regions  acquired  by  our  conquest, 
and  that  assurance  should  be  made  doubly  sure  by  a  positive 
prohibition.  He  knew  that  of  the  territories  acquired  from 
Mexico,  204,355  square  miles  were  south  of  the  line  of  thirty- 
six  degrees  thirty  minutes,  and  in  the  latitude  of  Virginia  and 
the  Carolinas.  It  does  not  help  the  case  in  the  least  to  say 
that  slavery,  in  fact,  did  not  secure  a  footing  in  New  Mexico, 
because  this  fortunate  circumstance  was  not  the  result  of  any 
''law  of  the  formation  of  the  earth,"  but  of  resistless  moral 
forces  and  the  strange  drift  of  subsequent  events  which  no 
man  in  1850  could  possibly  foresee.  That  this  famous  speech 
was  Mr.  Webster's  bid  for  southern  support  for  the  Presi 
dency  was  still  more  conclusively  demonstrated  during  the 
two  following  years,  in  his  contemptuous  flings  at  the  higher 
law,  his  unstinted  abuse  of  "  the  rub-a-dub  Abolitionists," 
and  his  desperate  and  pitiable  struggle  in  the  campaign  of 
1852,  in  which  the  ingratitude  of  the  South  and  his  insuffer 
able  disappointment  and  humiliation  sent  him  home  to  die  of 
a  broken  heart.  Goaded  forward  by  his  devouring  political 
ambition  in  this  trial  hour  of  the  republic,  he  deliberately 
prostituted  his  matchless  powers,  a  noble  nature  and  the  pres 
tige  of  his  great  name  to  the  service  of  slavery  and  the  be 
trayal  of  a  holy  cause. 


WEBSTER  AND  ELAINE  :    HISTORIC  JUSTICE.  313 

I  turn  now  to  the  closing  days  of  Congress  in  the  spring 
of  1861,  when  Sumner,  Wade,  and  other  Republican  leaders 
allowed  bills  to  be  reported  for  the  government  of  Colorado 
and  Nevada  without  the  Wilmot  proviso.  The  fight  for  free 
dom  in  the  territories  had  then  been  won  in  the  Kansas  strug 
gle,  which  proved  the  Armageddon  of  the  great  conflict. 
Lincoln  had  been  elected,  and  the  administration  could  no 
longer  be  used  as  the  handmaid  of  slavery.  New  Mexico 
and  the  other  territories  involved  had  been  secured  to  free 
dom  by  the  logic  of  events  and  the  madness  of  the  south, 
while  slavery  itself  was  fatally  threatened  by  the  great  trade- 
winds  of  humanity  and  civilization.  The  repeal  of  the  Mis 
souri  restriction  had  proved  a  deadly  boomerang  to  the  slave 
power  by  rousing  and  combining  the  people  of  the  northern 
states  against  it.  The  diabolism  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
strangled  it  in  its  birth,  and  multiplied  anti-slavery  men  in 
every  section  of  the  non-slaveholding  states.  The  appeal  of 
the  south  from  political  aciion  to  the  bayonet  was  itself  a  con 
fession  that  slavery  had  been  baffled  and  finally  overborne, 
and  that  having  sown  the  wind  it  must  now  reap  the  whirl 
wind  in  the  desperate  refuge  of  secession  as  its  only  hope. 
The  danger  of  disunion,  moreover,  was  now  no  longer  a 
distant  and  debatable  question,  as  in  1850,  but  was  imminent. 
The  dispensation  of  "southern  bluster"  was  ended,  and  the 
work  of  dismemberment  had  actually  begun.  The  Repub 
lican  leaders  were  brought  face  to  face  with  the  catastrophe 
of  civil  war ;  and  the  policy  of  passing  territorial  bills  with 
out  the  inhibition  of  slavery,  which  could  serve  no  practical 
purpose  whatever,  was  favored  as  one  of  the  final  efforts 
then  made  to  conciliate  the  south  and  avert  the  awful  calam 
ities  of  civil  strife.  It  was  a  palpably  futile  endeavor,  and  I 
so  regarded  it  at  the  time ;  but  it  did  not  surrender  a  foot  of 
land  to  the  ravages  of  slavery.  It  was  a  mistake,  because 
the  day  of  conciliation  had  long  since  passed ;  but  it  bore 
witness  to  the  humanity  of  the  men  who  recoiled  from  the 
alternative  of  war,  and  who  yet  clung  to  the  hope,  though 
vainly,  that  it  might  be  averted.  The  honesty  and  purity  of 


314  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

their  motives  were  never  called  in  question,  and  Mr.  Elaine 
himself  admits  that  congressional  restriction  was  then  un 
necessary,  and  that  their  action  was  ''altogether  patriotic." 
In  the  light  of  these  plain  facts  of  history,  the  untenable- 
ness  of  Mr.  Elaine's  statements  will  be  clearly  seen.  He 
speaks  of  the  abandonment  of  the  "  cardinal  article"  of  the 
Republican  creed  by  Sumner,  Wade,  Stevens,  Lovejoy  and 
others,  without  a  word  of  explanation.  But  no  explanation 
was  needed,  because  the  "cardinal  article"  was  not  aban 
doned.  He  speaks  of  the  "extraordinary  change  of  posi 
tion"  of  these  distinguished  leaders  :  but  there  was  no  change 
in  their  "position,"  but  only  in  the  state  of  the  country 
since  the  year  1850,  and  the  altered  attitude  of  the  slavery 
question  which  it  produced.  He  says:  "The  Republican 
party  took  precisely  the  same  ground  held  by  Mr.  Webster 
in  1850,  and  acted  from  precisely  the  same  motives  that  in 
spired  the  7th  of  March  speech ; "  but  the  facts  in  the  case 
show  that  the  Republican  leaders  of  1861  were  perfectlv 
justified  in  regarding  the  Wilmot  proviso  as  then  unnecessary, 
and  that  their  motives  in  what  they  did  were  unquestionably 
patriotic ;  while  it  is  also  shown  that  the  Wilmot  proviso  in 
1850  was  necessary,  and  that  Mr.  Webster's  motives  in  sur 
rendering  it  were  as  unpatriotic  and  sinister  as  the  result  of 
his  act  was  calamitous.  Mr.  Elaine  says  that,  "as  a  matter 
of  historic  justice,  the  Republicans  who  waived  the  anti- 
slavery  restriction  should,  at  least,  have  offered  and  recorded 
their  apology  for  any  animadversions  they  had  made  upon 
the  course  of  Mr.  Webster  ten  years  before."  But  I  have 
shown  that  no  apology  was  called  for,  because  no  wrong  had 
been  done  him,  and  I  submit  that,  "as  matter  of  historic 
justice,"  Mr.  Elaine  should  apologize  for  his  inexcusable 
assault  upon  the  bravest  and  best  men  among  the  founders 
of  his  party,  and  his  despicable  defense  of  Mr.  Webster  at 
their  expense.  He  says,  "Between  the  words  of  Mr.  Sew- 
ard  and  Mr.  Sumner  in  the  one  crisis,  and  their  votes  in  the 
other,  there  is  a  discrepany  for  which  it  would  have  been 
well  to  leave  on  record  an  adequate  explanation."  But  the 


WEBSTER  AND  ELAINE  :    HISTORIC  JUSTICE.  315 

facts  clearly  show  that  no  such  discrepancy  exists.  He  says 
the  Republican  leaders  in  1861  "  literally  followed  in  Mr. 
Webster's  footsteps"  in  1850,  and  that  "it  is  seldom  that 
history  so  exactly  repeats  itself;"  but  I  have  shown  the  utter 
fallacy  of  these  statements  by  the  actual  situation  of  the 
country  at  the  two  periods,  so  far  as  the  question  of  slavery 
is  concerned,  and  the  contrasted  action  thereon  of  Mr.  Web 
ster  on  the  one  hand  and  the  Republican  leaders  on  the 
other. 

My  task  would  be  incomplete  if  I  did  not  add  that  this 
defense  of  Daniel  Webster  destroys  itself  by  proving  too 
much.  It  dishonors  Mr.  Elaine's  political  ancestry,  and 
places  him  in  an  exceedingly  awkward  predicament  as  a 
leader  of  the  Republican  party.  The  formation  of  that  party 
was  not  an  accident,  nor  was  it  the  work  of  a  day.  It  was  a 
development,  and  has  a  very  discoverable  genesis.  Its  pri 
mal  beginning  was  in  the  old  Liberty  party,  and  a  "  cardinal 
article"  of  the  creed  of  that  party  was  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  our  national  territories.  It  was  a  gallant  little 
band  of  sappers  and  miners  who  blazed  the  way  for  the 
armies  that  were  to  follow ;  but  if  Mr.  Webster  was  right  in 
1850,  these  men  were  pestilent  fanatics  and  disturbers  of  the 
peace,  who  fairly  invited  the  dicipline  of  the  mob  or  the  po 
lice.  Next  came  the  old  Free-soil  party  of  1848,  avowing 
the  same  fundamental  principle.  It  was  led  by  such  men  as 
Adams,  Sumner,  Chase,  Hale,  Giddings,  Wilson  and  many 
others,  whose  names  are  now  held  in  honorable  remembrance 
by  all  Republicans.  According  to  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr. 
Elaine,  however,  they  were  all  engaged  in  "a  quarrel  about 
goats'  wool,"  since  "the  law  of  physical  geography"  and 
"the  will  of  God"  had  consecrated  our  national  territories  to 
freedom.  This  party,  with  its  honorable  place  in  history, 
would  never  have  been  organized  but  for  the  antecedent  work 
of  the  Liberty  party,  which  was  the  John  the  Baptist  of  po 
litical  action  against  slavery ;  but  having  fulfilled  its  mission 
by  preparing  the  way  for  a  larger  movement,  better  fitted  to 
accomplish  its  work,  it  was  merged  in  the  Republican 


3l6  CONTROVERSIAL    PAPERS. 

party,  whose  "  cardinal  article"  of  faith  was  that  of  its  pre 
decessors.  But  if  Mr.  Elaine  is  right  in  his  defense  of  Mr. 
Webster,  the  "grand  old  party"  had  no  excuse  for  its  crea 
tion,  except  the  work  to  which  it  was  summoned  in  the 
struggle  to  make  Kansas  a  free  state  ;  and  it  never  would 
have  existed  but  for  the  proceeding  organizations  which  pre 
pared  the  way  for  it  and  made  it  possible,  while  the  Kansas 
struggle  itself  could  never  have  occurred  but  for  the  aban 
donment  of  the  Wilmot  proviso  in  1850,  in  which  the  leader 
ship  of  Mr.  Webster  was  so  potent  a  factor.  I  do  not  believe 
that  other  prominent  leaders  of  his  party  will  be  found  ready 
to  join  Mr.  Elaine  in  disowning  its  pedigree  and  seeking  to 
cut  the  thread  of  history  from  behind  it ;  but  if  I  am  mis 
taken,  I  can  only  say  that  they  have  outlived  the  spirit 
which  gave  it  birth,  and  are  the  "degenerate  sons  of  noble 
sires." 

I  need  scarcely  add  that  the  defense  of  Mr.  Webster 
necessarily  involves  another  fact  of  which  Mr.  Elaine  seems 
totally  unconscious.  It  is  a  confession.  If  Mr.  Webster  was 
right  in  1850,  Mr.  Elaine  would  have  stood  by  his  side  and 
confronted  Seward,  Chase  and  Hale  in  the  Senate,  and  their 
allies  in  the  House,  whose  labors,  though  they  failed  at  the 
time,  paved  the  way  for  more  comprehensive  and  effective* 
action  in  the  future.  He  would,  of  course,  have  opposed  the 
anti-slavery  revolt  of  1848.  Still  more  would  he  have  op 
posed  the  organization  of  the  Liberty  party  and  the  earlier 
and  more  historic  movement  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  which  began  its  heroic  work  in  the  face  of  a  fiercely 
hostile  public  opinion,  the  proscription  and  wrath  of  the  old 
political  parties,  the  equally  hostile  power  of  the  American 
Church  and  the  mob.  No  man,  I  am  sure,  whose  soul  was 
so  moved  by  the  wrongs  of  slavery  as  to  ally  himself  with  a 
small  and  despised  party  in  resisting  such  fearful  odds,  could 
ever  defend  the  seventh  of  March  speech.  It  would  not  be 
morally  possible.  He  might  admire  Mr.  Webster's  "God 
like  "  gifts,  but  he  could  not  even  dream  of  making  him  a 
hero,  still  less  an  anti-slavery  apostle.  As  an  active  and 


WEBSTER  AND  ELAINE  I    HISTORIC  JUSTICE.  317 

very  zealous  member  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  days  of 
its  glory,  and  a  preacher  of  its  doctrines  long  years  before  it 
received  the  gift  of  life,  I  can  not  suffer  the  pioneers  of  free 
dom  and  the  founders  of  that  party  to  he  assailed  without  re 
buke.  In  lauding  the  act  of  Mr.  Webster  in  throwing  him 
self  into  the  arms  of  the  South  in  a  great  national  crisis, 
while  arraigning  the  tried  and  true  men  who  condemned  his 
recreancy,  Mr.  Blaine  renounces  his  kinship  with  the  anti- 
slavery  movement  in  all  its  historic  phases.  He  defines  his 
position  as  a  prudent  politician  and  a  thrifty  statesman,  but 
not  a  reformer  in  any  sense.  He  is  the  brilliant  leader  of 
Republicanism  in  its  modified  and  latter-day  life,  but  not  the 
representative  and  exemplar  of  its  fundamental  principles. 
In  his  account  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820,  he 
breathes  no  word  of  censure  against  this  pregnant  and  historic 
surrender  of  freedom  to  the  demands  of  slavery,  but  defends 
it  as  "wise  and  patriotic."  There  is  no  conclusive  evidence 
that  his  devotion  to  the  colored  race  rests  upon  any  in 
wrought  principle  or  real  sympathy,  while  his  attitude  in 
Congress  on  the  question  of  reconstruction  is  open  to  criti 
cism,  as  I  have  heretofore  shown.*  As  the  negro  has  grad 
ually  made  his  escape  from  the  thraldom  of  party  politics 
and  shown  his  ability  to  take  care  of  himself,  Mr.  Elaine's 
solicitude  for  his  welfare  seems  to  have  steadily  increased. 
Unquestionably  he  possesses  "magnetism,"  great  ability  and 
shining  gifts  ;  but  he  is  unfit  to  hold  the  scales  of  historic 
justice  in  dealing  with  the  anti-slavery  conflict  and  its  leaders. 

GEORGE  W.  JULIAN. 

*  International  Review,  for  August,  1879. 


RETURN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 
TO—*      202  Main  Library 

LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

1  -month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405 

6-month  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books  to  Circulation 

Desk 

Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  due  date 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


KG.  CIR.  OCT  3  1  78 

MAY  2  9  1990 

MiHKM**8" 

H 

JUN  1  7  -aius 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 

FORM  NO.  DD6,  40m,  3/78  BERKELEY,  CA  94720 

<Bt 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


C02271S2S4 


